Into The Game
by Back of Beyond
Summary: All three of us, sitting in a circle, sunk deeper and deeper into a state of meditation. Our heads were cleared of everything, except for the faintest hint of a quest. To find our essence.
1. From Playstation To Spira

**A/N:** This is my, erm, third fan fic. I am very s-l-o-w-l-y becoming a master (yeah, right), even though I haven't actually finished either of my other stories (one is un-finish-able anyway, because THEY REMOVED IT! The nerve! As Ormi would say). Anyway, this story is about me and four friends getting sucked into the game AFTER the perfect ending. Please R&R! Enjoy.

**From Playstation to Spira**

"Whew. Not bad, getting 100% second time round, eh?" I said, leaning back in the chair. Martha was sitting on the bed, next to Victoria and Holly, and Lillie was on the stool next to me.

We'd just finished watching the special ending - you know, the one after the credits stop rolling if you've completed 100%?

"Yeah, not bad. Would've been better to get 100% first time, though," Martha said.

Lillie butted in, "But this way we've seem all the endings."

"Well, what do you want to do now?" I asked, leaning forward to press the power button on the PS2.

"What the - ?!" Victoria said, pointing at the screen, "Is that _meant_ to happen?!"

We all looked, getting a mega shock doing so. The screen, or what _used_ to be the screen, had turned into a kind of vortex.

"I'm beginning to think that _isn't_ meant to happen, you?" Lillie said, backing away.

"No! And I definitely don't trust it!" I said, also backing away.

"This is the freakiest thing that has ever happened to me," Holly spoke. That was the exact moment the vortex let out a bright, white light, engulfing the whole room.

Then, the five of us were sucked in.

_::So Many Minutes Later::_

"Uh, where am I?" I groaned, opening my eyes. My hand automatically sheltered my eyes from the sun. I sat up, looking for the others, who were thankfully next to me, even if they were unconscious.

"That hurt ... " Lillie moaned, slowly sitting up, shortly followed by the others.

"Where are we?" Holly asked, looking around, "Seems familiar, for some reason."

"I know what you mean. I've never been here, but it seems like it," I put in. We were on a kind of hill, over looking to sea.

For a few minutes, we sat there, talking about where we could be. No one noticed when Martha got up and walked over to the edge. After another few minutes, Martha caught our attention with a startled shriek.

"What is it?!" We all asked, getting up.

"I think I've just realised where we are. It may seem unbelievable, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. We're in Besaid."

"What?" Lillie asked, "Besaid? You mean in _Spira_?!"

Martha nodded, "Just come and look at this."

We walked over. As we neared the edge, we could see the beach down below, meeting the sea. It was Besaid, or at least it looked like it. The dock, shape, path, everything. Back up on the hill we were on, everything was the same, to the slightest detail.

"No way," Victoria exclaimed, backed up by Holly, "I will not believe we're in Besaid!"

That was the exact moment Yuna, Rikku and Paine came round the corner, heading to the village.

**A/N:** What do you reckon? Good enough to continue? Sorry that was a short chapter, but there was only so much I could say. Most chapters will be longer (there might be a few short ones, but you'll only get chapters if you review!).


	2. Introductions

**A/N:** Chapter 2 is here! Let's PAR-TEY!!!!! Sorry, I'm slightly hyper, I've been drinking too much coke. I've had to edit mine and my friends ages, because we aren't really the right ages to be travelling Spira alone! Anyhow, enjoy chappie 2!

**Introductions**

"Oh my God," Lillie said, seeing YRP coming round the corner, "This is a nightmare."

"I know ..." I said, next to speechless. The rest _were_ speechless.

"Stop gawping!" I suddenly hissed, "We don't want them getting suspicious!"

In attempts to look 'innocent', Victoria, Holly, and Lillie sat down on the grass, while me and Martha stayed standing, facing the sea.

"What are we going to do? I mean, if we're in Spira, how we getting home?" Holly asked, careful not to let YRP hear.

Lillie said, "We don't know! Hopefully this'll just be a dream ..."

"Yeah, but, come on! I'm sorry, but that vortex seemed pretty real to me, and this place is more real than a dream had ever been," Victoria added.

Martha got annoyed by this, spinning around to face them. "Yes, we get your point! We're really here! In Spira! We don't know how to get home! Do you think _we_ know how to get home?!"

This statement led to both good and bad things. Good was Victoria and Holly didn't say anything else. None of us blamed them, though. If they hadn't had said anything, one of us would have. Anyway, _bad_ was, well, it caught Rikku's attention.

"You okay?" She asked, walking over, followed by Yuna and Paine.

When no body spoke, I got the sense to speak, "Yeah, we're okay. It's just we've got into a bit of bother with places to stay over night. We were planning on leaving before night."

"Oh," Yuna said, "Well, don't worry, the village is just down there. We're heading there, we'll show you. So you don't have anywhere to stay?"

Victoria said, "Well, yeah. Oh, we know where the village is though."

"I'm sure you'll work something out," Paine said for the first time, meaning we'd find a place to stay.

"And we'll help!" Rikku said, jumping in the air. Paine rolled her eyes and Yuna laughed.

"That'd be great," Martha said.

Rikku tilted her head to the side slightly and squinted at the elephant on Martha's sweater. "Is that a shoopuf?"

"Huh?" Martha looked confusedly at Rikku. I coughed, getting Martha's attention, then I slyly pointed at the elephant on her top. "Oh!" She exclaimed, "Yeah, but one of my, er, other friend's brother got a hold of it and, erm, gave it to some merchant or something and messed around with it. Looks like a mutated shoopuf, doesn't it?"

"Yeah! It's kinda cute, though, a shoopuf with ears!"

We all let out a silent breath of relief.

"Hmmm," Yuna said to herself. She saw Paine looking at her and said, "Well, there's no where for them to stay at such short notice in Besaid, is there? We might have to let them on the airship, drop them off somewhere in the morning."

That was met by our five smiles.

Rikku laughed, "Looks like they like the idea!"

"I'll ask Brother when they arrive. You'll have to stay in Besaid until then. Is that okay?"

"Definitely," I said.

"Oh by the way, I'm Yuna, this is Rikku, and this is Paine."

"We know," Holly said, standing up. She immediately froze, realising what she'd said.

Rikku was shocked, "How?"

"Oh, come on!" Lillie said quickly, "You defeated Sin _and_ Vegnagun!"

Rikku blushed, "Oh yeah. Sorry, I'm not used to this."

"No problem," I said, "So, we going to the village or not?"

_::Besaid Village::_

"HEADS UP!" That was the first thing we heard on entering the village. Not that I was annoyed by this, if it hadn't had been yelled, we would've been bashed in the face by a blitzball.

"Sorry!" Yuna apologised, "Tidus gets a bit carried away sometimes."

"Tidus?!" Holly exclaimed, again regretting it. Luckily, we had another cover this time, as well.

When YRP looked at us, Martha came up with, "Sorry, but didn't he, you know ... disappear?"

"Oh! Well, he's kind of ... back now!"

"Fair enough," I said, continuing to walk. "How long before your airship gets hear?"

"Few hours. We have things to do," Paine said in her usual icy tone. It was obvious she would rather get us out the way.

Rikku was thankfully a lot nicer, "Don't worry, Paine! We'll introduce them to everyone, then they can do whatever they want and can go to them if they have any problems!"

"On with the introductions!" Martha said.

_::Introductions::_

"First of all, this is Tidus," Yuna said, as Tidus came running over.

"Uh, hi!" He said, not entirely sure what was going on, "I didn't hit any of you, did I?"

"We survived," I said.

"OI, WAKKA, LULU!" Rikku yelled at the top of her voice, seeing the two come out of their hut, Vidina in Lulu's arms. "GET OVER HERE!"

"Really, Rikku," Lulu said, walking over with Wakka, "There's no need."

"Sorry, Lu. Anyway," Yuna turned to the five of us, "This is Wakka, that's Lulu. You'll probably know them, too, they were my guardians when I was a Summoner. Oh, and this is Vidina."

We all said hi.

Yuna explained to them our situation. Eventually, she stopped and turned to us, saying, "Wait! We don't even no your names."

"Oh, sorry!" I said, laughing, "I'm Amy, this is Martha, that's Lillie, that's Holly, and finally that's Victoria."

"Nice to meet you," Lulu said, then adding, "How old are you?"

"We're all fifteen."

"Okay," Yuna said, "If you meet us here on the beach in, about, three hours? Have fun!"

Yuna, Rikku and Paine set off, to do whatever they were meant to.

"What will we do, then?" Martha asked. We were all set for three hours of sheer boredom.

Fortunately, Wakka came up with an idea, "Hey, how 'bouts you go play blitzball on the beach, ya?"

It was a good idea, you must admit.

**A/N:** Whew, that was a long chapter for me to write in one go! - - z z z Z Z Z

Remember, two reviews = new chapter!


	3. Blitzballs, Chocobos and Dress Spheres

**A/N:** Chapter 3 at your service! =P Sorry, I'm on the coke again. Anyway, thank you, reviewers! I've just realised I haven't put a disclaimer in, so here it is –

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Final Fantasy games and their contents, but I DO own this story!

**Blitzballs, Chocobos and Dress Spheres**

Even though we couldn't actually play blitzball, because it was an underwater sport, we all had enough fun. The five of us played with Wakka, Tidus, and some of the Besaid Aurochs. In fact, we had so much fun, the five of us ended up showing the rest how to play rugby.

"Whew, I'm all out!" Wakka exclaimed, at the end of the three hours, "Rugby's pretty deadly, ya?!"

Tidus fell down beside him, "I know, but I can't believe I've never played rugby before, it's great! I haven't even heard of it, though."

"Well, it's a local sport," Holly said.

"Yeah," Lillie muttered under breath to me, "It's a very local sport, the whole world's probably heard it."

"_Our_ world, that is," I pointed out.

"What do you want to do now? Yuna and that aren't hear yet," Victoria yelled, surprising not worn out.

"I think that's been decided for you," Wakka said, pointing to the entrance to the beach. There was a group of men trying to control about ten chocobos. I did say _trying_, though. After a bad move, the whole set were running around loose.

"Do we have to catch them?!" Martha yelled, obviously excited. Heck, we all were at the thought.

"Ya!" Wakka yelled, getting up, "So come on!"

I have to say, I'd never had as much fun in my entire life. It was hard work, catching the chocobos, but was it a laugh?! Yeah!

_::So Many Chocobos Later::_

Yuna, Rikku, and Paine _finally_ arrived.

"Notice how they came _after_ the chocobos had been caught," I muttered to Lillie, joking.

Rikku came bounding over, "So, had fun?"

"Yeah!" We all chorused.

Rikku and Yuna laughed. Paine looked up at the sky and said, "Looks like our lift has arrived."

Our eyes followed her gaze, landing on a tiny red dot in the sky, slowly coming closer. Eventually, the Celsius was landing in the waters not far back.

"Come on! Lets go talk to my good-for-nothing brother of mine," Rikku said, splashing through the waters. We all followed. By the time we got to the airship's entrance Rikku was already talking to Brother, who was standing in the entrance.

"Aw, lusa uh! Mad dras uh, ed'c uhmo vun uha hekrd! Fryd tu oui cyo?" Rikku pleaded. Brother was obviously against the idea, but after a few minutes of pleading, he agreed.

"Ugyo, pid uhmo vun uha hekrd!"

Holly, Victoria and Lillie leaned towards me and Martha. I said, "He's letting us on."

"I really should learn Al Bhed," Lillie said, nodding, "How long'd it take you?"

"A long, long, time," Martha said, walking towards to Celsius. We all followed.

_::Aboard The Big Red Ship::_

"How you doing?" Rikku asked, walking over to the five of us, who were sitting in the chairs by the tables down in the cabin. "I've been ordered here by my brother, he probably thinks you'll be trying to nick stuff."

"That's nice! We're fine."

Rikku turned to leave, but then said, "Oh! Where do you live?"

The five of us, we were stumped for a second, until I finally came up with, "Well, we live in a really small village. You might be better dropping us off at Bevelle."

"Okay. Come down to the bridge if you want," Rikku left.

I turned to the others, and then said, "Okay, we're being dropped off at Bevelle. What then?"

None of us had an answer, surprise, surprise.

_::The Bridge::_

As soon as the five of us entered the bridge we knew something was wrong. Just could just tell from a chain of constant 'uh-oh' s coming from Rikku, and the worried looks on all the other faces (apart from Shinra's, obviously, seeing as you can't see his).

"Problems?" Martha asked, looking around.

"Well, ,kind of – yes, actually," Yuna said, "Look, we have to go to Djose, immediately, we don't have enough time to drop you off, we're too far away from Bevelle."

"What's wrong?" Lillie said.

"Yeah, we've just been talking through the commsphere to Gippal, and they've had some weird going-on's over there. The temple seems to be under attack from an invisible force, and from the damage we've been shown it's serious. We have to help out. Will you be okay?"

"We'll manage, I suppose," I said.

Paine pointed out, "You could do with some garment grids, then, you won't have any, will you?"

I looked nervously at the others, "No, we don't have any."

Rikku came over to us with a selection of garment grids. "When you pick a garment grid all the dress spheres will come with it. You'll have to pick your favourites, though, not all fit in."

After a good ten minutes of trying and discarding many garment grids, we all settled on one. Next to come, of course, was the dress sphere try-out. Since we all knew how long this might have took, we went back to the cabin.

_:: The Cabin::_

It's amazing how when you play the game, you get to locations in seconds, but really, it takes hours. It took hours to get to Djose (well, actually, we didn't even land in Djose, we landed on the Moonflow), but they were a very fun few hours. The five of us, up the stairs by the beds, were messing around with all the different dress spheres.

"Mascot!" Victoria yelled, "We have to try on Mascot!"

You can't really appreciate just how hilarious this was, as the five of us all transformed into giant teddy-bear-like costumes. I have to say, though, I was very pleased with my Cactuar! Martha ended us as a moomba, Lillie as a HYPELLO, Holly as a chocobo, and – get this- Victoria as a SHOOPUF! [I point out she was A LOT smaller.]

After more experimenting, I transformed into Trainer, and instantly loved it. My animal was a racoon! Boring, you may think, but I just LOVE racoons. I named him Otto.

When the others saw this, it was major chaos (and hilarious-ity) as everyone turned to Trainer. Lillie had a fox (who she left name-less, due to name-ideas blockage), Holly had a meercat (also left nameless for the exact same reason), Victoria had a horse which she named Blizzard, and Martha had a snow leopard she called Dajario.

When the airship finally landed, I had chosen the Trainer as my default dress sphere. Holly was a thief, Martha and Lillie were Black Mage's, and to even it out, Victoria was a White Mage.

_::Moonflow::_

"Have fun?" Rikku asked as we left the Celsius.

"Oh, yes!" I said, laughing, "I have definitely never had as much fun in my life. Mascot cracked us all up. I mean, how can you wear that and be serious? If we wore that in battle our enemy would just thrash us because we couldn't take anything seriously!"

Rikku giggled, "I know, I can never wear it and stay sober either. Yuna giggles a bit, but then goes back to normal, and Paine just stays solemn. I don't know how she does it. What mascot are you, anyway?"

"A cactuar," this got me talking about everything that had happened in the cabin, and telling Rikku everyone's mascot.

"I should give a mascot dress sphere to Gippal, see what he comes out as," Rikku said, more to herself than me. If I hadn't had played the game at all, and not seen the scenes hinting at Rikku liking Gippal etc, I would have instantly known she liked him then, just from the way she looked.

"Oh," I teased, "Looks like someone's got a crush!"

Rikku blushed, "No I haven't! We're friends, that's all ..."

"Sure ... "I said, in that voice that says 'I don't believe you but I'm going to pretend I do, sort of'. In other words, the voice I used practically all the time.

I was just about to bug Rikku some more about Gippal, when we turned the final corner, and Djose Temple came in to full front view. I stopped talking immediately, out of pure shock. The Temple ... was practically destroyed.

**A/N:** Heh heh! What exactly is this evil invisible force, and why had it destroyed the Temple ...? Or did it ...?

FIND OUT IF YOU REVIEW!


	4. The Start Of It All, Probably

**A/N:** Omigod, major apologies to all you readers. I can't believe I haven't up-dated since ... whenever (mind you, I haven't up-dated 'Home Is Where The Heart Is' for an even longer amount of time). I don't know whether this chapter will make it up to you, but we'll see!

Disclaimer: I don't own ANYTHING (cept from this story line! )

P.S. I've just realised I haven't told you something, but (as you've probably guessed) this is written from me looking _back_ at everything. So I know how things turned out (heh heh, but you won't until _much_ later!).

**The Start Of It All, Probably**

"What the Hell happened here?" Someone suddenly shrieked (my guess is Martha, but I'm not certain). We all set off at a run, making our way towards the temple. We were stopped by some men.

"Whoa, whoa, can't let you get any closer. Too dangerous," one said, "Invisible force doing all this, can't fight it. Weapons are no use whatsoever."

"Well we can't just wait!" Rikku said frantically, "We have to do something!"

Looking back, I don't know what I was thinking, but I found myself walking up to the man and saying, "Listen, we're going through, alright? You don't have a choice of saying 'no', you're just going to let us through, understand? Try to stop, and expect a sharp pain somewhere down below," and at that, we all walked towards the temple.

_::Inside Djose Temple::_

Gippal came over to us the second we arrived. It was a death zone in there. Pieces of machina and temple stone were flying across the room. In fact, this 'invisible force' was very much so like a poltergeist. At the time, I thought it most likely was one. Hell, was I wrong ...

"Glad you came! But I don't think you're going to help in dispatching this thing, no one can, it's impossible," Gippal said.

"Any ideas were it came from?" Paine asked.

"Yeah, and were certain on it. We think it came from the Farplane, through the hole in the old Chamber Of Fayth."

Yuna frowned in thought, "Sounds right. An invisible force – coming from the Farplane. Where else would it come from?"

"No where," Rikku pointed out, "Which means it has come from the Farplane."

"I've got an idea, if it helps," I said. Gippal looked at us, I bet he hadn't noticed us before then. Anyway, before anyone could even speak, I was walking through the Cloister Of Trials with Lillie and Martha at my back, who knew exactly what I was planning.

The three of us were in the Chamber Of Fayth when the others (Victoria, Holly, YRP and Gippal) caught up with us.

"What are you planning?" Yuna asked.

"Oh, nothing. Mind you, if you think about it, this 'invisible force' must be hiding something if it's not appearing to us. Maybe it's weak normally, and needs a head start!"

After saying that, I guessed everyone got the message on what I was planning – to get the force to come in it's original, or at least see-able, form – and they decided to help out.

_::Not So Long After::_

Well, it worked. After a while of discussing the force, it arrived. I have to say, maybe the arrival wasn't the best of things. But then again, what would have happened if we left it ...

Pyerflies started to swirl in the air, and a figure was formed. No doubt about it, this was the force we were looking for.

"Weak! Ha, I think not. How about I show you my real destruction? What I've done to Djose Temple, that's nothing. Wait until you see everything," it said. 'It' was a man about thirty, covered from head to foot in scars and injuries.

"Who – who are you?" Rikku chocked out. Everyone seemed to have lost the power of speech.

"Oh, interested in a chat now are we? You're going to be hearing a lot of my acts in future. I'll let you go without a fight this time, but you may not be so lucky next, so watch your actions. Who am I? A dead man who seeks revenge on a world who asks for it. My name is Nemesis and my acts are vengeance."

And at that, he disappeared.

**A/N:** Sorry it was so short, but I could only say so much in this chapter. Review please! Say, two reviews for the next chapter? Deal!


	5. Explanations And Plans

**A/N:** I'm back again! Sorry I don't seem to be up-dating much, but my summer holidays have just started so I should be up-dating a lot more! Hope you like this chapter!

Disclaimer: You get the picture, don't you?

**Explanations And Plans**

Rikku and Yuna were apologizing for the millionth time when we arrived in Bevelle. After Nemesis had disappeared on us in Djose, we left for the Youth League Headquarters, hoping to find Nooj. Anyway, turned out he was in Bevelle with Baralai, discussing something or other about their 'differences'. This helped us in a way, though, it meant we didn't have to explain everything to Nooj, then travel to Bevelle and say exactly the same to Baralai. Instead, we could to it all at once. Mind you, it was pretty annoying.

The reason Rikku and Yuna kept apologizing was that when we got to Bevelle, we'd have to stay with the Gullwings, and not be allowed 'home' until Nemesis had been dealt with. Why? Because, seeing as we were one of the first to witness Nemesis, it was too dangerous. After all, we could be the first he came after. We kept on telling them (Rikku and Yuna) we didn't mind about staying. We said "we'd feel safer with you's, anyway." Of course, truth was, we'd rather stay with the Gullwings for a lot longer than get left behind in the biggest city in Spira, with no idea of what to do next.

"We're here!" Buddy called.

_::Bevelle::_

"Ah, Lady Yuna, how can we help?" A monk asked her the second we got off the airship.

"Is it possible we could see Nooj and Baralai? It's very important."

"Of course, come this way," the monk motioned with his hand, and Yuna, Rikku, Paine, Gippal and us (us being me, Martha, Lillie, Victoria and Holly) followed.

We entered the room Baralai and Nooj were conferring in. They were both sitting around a circular table, opposite each other. They asked us to join them and asked why we were here. YRP and Gippal sat down at the table, while Lillie, Victoria, Holly, Martha and me sat down on the floor against one of the walls, preferring to be left out this conversation.

_::After Everything's Explained (You Didn't Want To Listen To It, Did You?)::_

"This is terrible ..." Baralai muttered.

"I don't think 'terrible' quite does it justice," Nooj said, "If this guy Nemesis can really do worse than what he was doing to the temple, a lot of things could go wrong, as well as many people getting hurt."

They discussed it around the table for some time longer, until they got onto the subject of removing it.

"But how to we get rid of Nemesis? You can't, not in it's invisible form! We don't actually know whether it's attackable in normal form, the human one, and he's already dead so ... this could be hard. Impossible, even."

Everyone was getting that idea, all looking like they were going to give up hope. That's were I decided to speak.

"Come on!" I said, standing up. They all looked at me. "Impossible?! Everyone thought killing Sin for good was impossible, but was it? Seemed pretty destroyable to me! You've just got to gather the evidence against this 'Nemesis'! If he really was alive some time somebody's got to know, haven't they?!"

Martha spoke up then, too. "Yeah, ask that Maechen guy, he'll know about it if Nemesis was an anybody."

"And the farplane, that's got to have something useful, after all, that's were he came from!" Lillie put in.

"Maybe the fayth could help if they have enough strength ..." Victoria thought out loud, adding another idea to our list.

Holly finished everything off, aiming a question directly at the Gullwings. "Who feels like saving the world another time?"

They smiled, and shouted, "Let's go!"

**A/N:** So, good? It wasn't my best, but oh well ... only a page and a half. Anyway, please review! I'm sticking to my basis of two reviews for an up-date (but don't blame me if I don't up-date for a long time ...).


	6. Maechen, Where Art Thou?

**A/N:** Ok, I'm back! No body (so far) has mentioned this, but I'm still going to apologize. To those who know Maechen's little 'secret' - the one you find out in chapter five in Zanarkand, that apparently even Maechen didn't know about – I'm sorry, I didn't know! I don't actually have the game, my friend does, and AFTER I'd written the last chapter, she told me! So sorry about that!

Also, for the record, I haven't actually finished the game before! But I do know, right down to the slightest detail, what happens (for the normal ending, good ending and finally perfect ending). I've even seen the actual video sequence in Zanarkand, after the credits stop rolling when you've completed 100. Though it is very unlikely me and my friend will ever see ANY ending, because we are stuck on Vegnagun's foot! (I don't know how many 'feet' you have to fight, but if it's more than one, we're stuck on the first one!) If someone we manage to complete the game, another thing's stopping us from getting 100. In chapter 5 in Bevelle, when you're that maze, in a cloister (somewhere from 20-25) there is a giant Nidhog that you can't avoid, and it keeps massacring us! SO we will never get to Trema. sob

Whew sighs long author note! Thank you, reviewers, and hope you enjoy this chapter!

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**Maechen, Where Art Thou?**

"So... any ideas where Maechen will be ...?" I asked, leaning against the cool metal of the bridge on the Celsius.

Me, Lillie and Martha were sitting down on the floor, leaning against the wall on the left hand side, while Victoria and Holly were sitting on the left hand side bottom step of the stairs. Rikku was in her usual place of next the Brother, Brother himself was piloting, and Buddy was on the other side of Brother, with is sphere ocillar-thingy (I don't know how to spell it...). Shinra was in his seat by his many computer, and Paine, Yuna, Baralai, Nooj and Gippal were in a kind of circle in the centre of the floor, sitting down.

"Well, we last saw him in the Zanarkand Ruins, but that was a while ago," Rikku said from her chair.

"So, do we have to search every place in Spira until we find him?" Paine asked, her icy tone showing signs of boredom.

Yuna frowned in thought, "Looks like it. But at least we know he's not in Bevelle! I reckon we could do with some help, though. If we split up, in reasonable size groups, and search, we could get this done soon enough!"

And that was that. There were fourteen of us, so Yuna offered to go fetch Tidus, making it fifteen, so we could go around in groups of three – Buddy, Brother and Shinra were to stay on the Celsius, waiting for any group to report back.

Paine, Rikku and Holly were searching Bikanel, then take an Al Bhed ship to the Baaj Temple (because you never know), and finally taking the ship to the Moonflow, where they would search the Moonflow, Guadosalam and the Thunder Plains.

Yuna, Tidus and Victoria were looking in Besaid (obviously), Kilika, Luca, then from the Mi-ihen Highroad to Mushroom Rock and stopping at Djose.

Baralai, Nooj and Gippal were exploring the Calm Lands, Mt. Gagazet and the Zanarkand Ruins (Maechen's probable location).

And finally, Martha, Lillie and me were investigating Macalania, and (believe me, if we were not very happy about this) the Omega Ruins (well, not the Omega Ruins any more, seeing as he was killed, but you get what I mean).

If Maechen was found, you had to (somehow or other) get him to come on the airship. When he agreed (if he agreed) you'd call the airship. Buddy would then alert everyone else, pick up the group who found Maechen, then pick up everyone else.

_::Macalania::_

"Ok, so search Macalania Woods and Lake thoroughly, then go to Macalania Temple," Buddy instructed us, "Then, there will be a guy waiting for you. Al Bhed, called Bait, he'll stick out like a sore thumb in that place believe me. He's given us permission to let you use his air ship. It's small, but it'll be fine for three people. Use it to get to the Omega Ruins. Once you've searched there - if you find Maechen bring him with you, obviously – and return to Macalania Temple. Give Bait back his airship, and wait for us to pick you up. S'that ok?"

"Roger!" Lillie, me and Martha saluted him, before jumping off the airship at the entrance of Macalania Woods.

_::Macalania – Crystal Road::_

"No luck," I said, as Lillie walked over to me and Martha. We had spilt up in the Woods, deciding to meet on the crystal-type road, where the fork was (and I mean fork in the road, not the cutlery type).

"Me neither," Lillie replied, "So it's the Travel Agency and the Lake now, then?"

"Yep."

_::Macalania Lake::_

Me and Lillie had to practically drag Martha out the Travel Agency.

"Aw, come on! I only wanted to stock up on a few more items! It's not my fault if I have a soft spot for grenades! Couldn't I just buy some more? -"

"NO!" Me and Lillie yelled.

_::Bait's Airship::_

The three of us were getting desperate as we neared the temple, none of us really wanted to go to the Omega Ruins. It's not as though we couldn't handle them fiends, but I wasn't really looking forward to meeting one of them Floating Deaths. Doom isn't the nicest thing to have cast on you, especially when you can't cure it ...

Anyway, on the trip to the Temple, we were all hoping like mad that Maechen would be in the Temple, on the road to the Temple. Even Otto (my racoon, in case you've forgotten) seemed to know what was going to happen. Sadly, Maechen was not there.

Bait, sticking out like a sore thumb as Buddy had predicted, seemed to know it was us straight away. Maybe Buddy had said 'Look out for three girls – two black mages and one with a pet racoon,'?

Martha and Lillie had voted me to fly the airship, because they wanted to have a look at other things. It was only when we were up in the air (I've lost count of how many times I tried to get that thing off the ground) that I yelled –

"I don't mean to alarm anyone, but how the Hell do you FLY THIS THING??!!!!"

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**A/N:** Ok, when I was going on about Doom casted by the Floating Deaths, I made it so Doom actually kills you, not just KO's you, if you get me. I will probably do that with a lot of things. I'm quite pleased with this chapter – over two pages! (Hardly anything, I know ...) Remember, two reviews!


	7. The Omega Ruins

**A/N:** I know I haven't up-dated in ages! (So long in fact, we've completed the game, I'm on chapter 5 in a new one, and we're stuck into FFVIII now!). I didn't get many reviews for the last chapter, so I'm guessing people are losing interest, and to tell you the truth so am I. So expect to see this story finishing in as little chapters as possible! Enjoy!

**The Omega Ruins**

We managed to land without any _major_ injuries (notice how a say without any 'major' injuries). The ruins had really changed, considering nobody lived there, or even visited the ruins. I pointed this out to Martha and Lillie.

Lillie shrugged, "Well, you couldn't travel to them in FFX2, so we'll never know how they changed, right?"

"What do you mean they've changed?" Martha enquired, "What's different about them? Besides the things that have collapsed because of their age."

I pointed, "You see, when you came here in Final Fantasy X, you turned left to come to a room with treasure chests, and a little before that was a path leading to the main part of the ruins. Ultima's lair and all that. When you turned right you also came to a room with treasure chests, and slightly before _that_, there was a little path leading round to another room. The same room that you come to if you head straight forward. Now, all that's the same – minus the treasure chests – _but_, if you look to the room straight forward," I moved Martha so she could see where I was pointing, "There's another path. A New path, and judging from the direction it's leading, it goes straight to Omega's lair."

"Oh, yeah!" Martha said, and Lillie nodded in agreement when I showed her.

"So, correct me if I'm wrong, some time between the end of FFX and the end of FFX2, this path was built?" Lillie asked.

"Exactly!"

She thought for a moment, then continued with, "But who would build a path here? This place is empty besides fiends. Are you telling us _fiends_ built it?"

I shook my head, "No, I'm telling you a _person_ was here, and _they_ built the path some time. Some time before they end of FFX2."

Martha said, "Who cares? Let people build paths if they want!" Before walking to the left, after spotting a hidden treasure chest.

"I see your point, Amy," Lillie muttered quietly to me, "Who would build a path here? Especially to Omega's previous lair. People wouldn't do that unless they were actually using the lair for something!" 

We were silent for a moment, thinking, then we suddenly looked at each other.

"A hide-out?" I suggested, raising an eye-brow.

"Let's go check it out!"

That's when we heard someone scream. That's when we heard Martha scream.

_::Ultima's Lair::_

We followed the scream until we reached the place were Ultima used to rest. On the floor was Martha, covered in cuts and gashes, no doubt the handiwork of a very hungry looking fiend, ready to attack. It didn't look too pleased at our interruption, either.

"Martha!" Lillie exclaimed, while throwing a Pheonix Down to Martha.

"I'm ... okay ..." She muttered, clearly not. She changed into White Mage for a brief second before beginning to return into a Black Mage.

"Wait!" I called out, dodging a firaga attack from the fiend, "You have Gun Mage equipped, right? Scan it!"

So Martha changed to Gun Mage, while me and Lillie did our best at dodging. Neither of us dared attack it without any information. It didn't look that easy to defeat.

"Uh, guys! Bad news!" Martha called to us, in scan mode, "It's a magical fiend, but it has permanent Nullall, Shell status and Bullet-proof! It's immune to every offensive status there is! We have to attack it on close-quarters!"

"You gotta be kidding me ... "I muttered.

"I'll change to Warrior!" Lillie shouted, already half way through the change. Me and Martha briefly looked at each.

"I'll be a Dark Knight!" Martha yelled. I nodded and began to change into Beserker.

**A/N: **I warn you, I'm useless at fighting scenes, so don't expect to much with the next chapter, alright? I'm gonna start writing chapter 8 after I've posted this, so two reviews and it'll be up almost straight away!


	8. Big Fiend, Little Fiend, Cardboard Box

**A/N:** Yeah, quick up-date! I know I normally do a basis of two reviews for a chapter, but oh well! Thanks to all my reviewers, and I don't just mean for the last chapter, but to every single person who's reviewed! This story wouldn't be here without you! A special thanks to anyone who has reviewed since chapter 1.

Also, I can't remember what attacks you begin with for each dress sphere, so don't worry if I'm wrong!

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy [sob].

This chapter is dedicated to **Lillie **and** Martha**, aka **Unknown Reason **and **undiscovered-truth**!

**Big Fiend, Little Fiend, Cardboard box**

The most annoying thing about fighting Kyjiva (that was the name of the fiend)? The fact it was immune to everything. _Everything_. It was even immune to Breaks, for crying out loud! It didn't help this was our first fight, so we didn't no many abilities in the way of dress spheres. We started that fight knowing roughly three abilities each. It took so long, by the end we were about half of the way to mastering the dress spheres we began in. Mind you, we _were_ in the same dress spheres for the whole fight, minus a few trips to various others. Anyway, want to know what happened? Be my guest:

"Crap, it's immune to Power Break!" Lillie exclaimed, backing away from Kyjiva after trying, and failing, to lower it's strength.

"Scan _did_ say it was immune to everything!"

"Hey, Lillie!" I yelled, ignoring the fact that I had just learnt Cripple (it would have been immune, anyway), and ordinarily attacking, "There's no point in you staying in Warrior! If it's immune to the Breaks _and_ elemental attacks, that dress sphere's worthless!"

"Rogerrrrrr!" Lillie shouted, imitating Brother, and swapping dress sphere. She ended up as Samurai.

"Hey, take this!" Lillie screamed at Kyjiva, using Spare Change. It barely did anything. "Hmmm, little more gil next time."

"Let's see what you can do, Martha!" I said.

Martha began to power up for something. I realised it was Darkness and got out a hi-potion at the ready.

Martha ran forward, yelling, "It's Martha's time to shine!" Before the attack took place. I healed her as quick as I could, silencing her "Oh, shit, shit, shit."

For the next ten minutes, the fight continued in a pattern. We attacked, Kyjiva attacked, we healed, we attacked, Kyjiva attacked ... and so on. That was until something awful happened. It unleashed it's 'special' attack. Guess what it was called? Jeopardy. How true ...

The attack consisted of a Demi-like attack. It gave all of us Poison, Darkness, Confusion and Slow. Lillie was also petrified. Luckily, Martha was immune to all of those except Darkness and Slow, but the attack wasn't over yet. It carried on with a series of devastating flurry hits to all of us, leaving us with less than an eighth our original health.

"Give me just a second!" She yelled, while avoiding the budget grenade I had thrown at her from Confusion. Then she threw a Remedy at me and continued with readying another Remedy for Lillie, as I prepared the Mega-potion. Lillie recovered and gave Martha some Eye-drops.

A chucked the Mega-potion in the air and sighed with relief as it took its toll. The one problem remaining was Slow, which we all had. None of us knew Dispel and we didn't have anything with Haste either. We just had to hope for the best.

To me, the whole healing process took quite a long time. After all, we _did_ have Slow on us. But what was strange was that Kyjiva had not attacked since Jeopardy. In fact, it hadn't even made a noise. I looked at it, and my eyes opened in surprise. It was standing in the middle of some kind of Aura. Pyreflies swarmed around it.

"Uh-oh ..." I heard Martha say.

"It's preparing for an attack. A deadly one, by the looks of it," Lillie said, backing even further away.

I yelled to them, "Set your dress sphere abilities so the next attack you learn is a deadly one! With any luck, we might learn something useful to finish it off! If you don't have anything, learn something protective!"

And that's what we did. I set it so I was going to learn Mad Rush, Lillie did the same with her's and Martha ditto. Then we launched an all out offensive with everything we knew that worked. The more damage, the better.

Five minutes (and a considerable amount of injury) later, everything went black. No, I hadn't blacked out. Kyjiva's attack was complete, and already in business. Appearance-wise, the attack was very impressive. We didn't know what was going on, but our faces fell when we saw Death appear in front of us. It was no doubt, this attack was Mega-death.

Death came closer and closer, until it was right in front of us. It stuck out its hand and reached forward ...

Then, in what was less than a second, a sound played. It was the sound when you heal, or cure a status, or when you ... learn an ability.

You know when time seems to stand almost still? A second can last forever? That's what happened as soon as we heard that sound. Me and Lillie looked over to Martha, who was still in her Dark Knight dress sphere, and realised something straight away. We were saved. How? Martha had learnt Deathproof.

Then things went black once more. _This_ time, I'd been knocked out. I don't know how long me and Lillie were lying unconscious, but according to Martha she hadn't wasted a second retrieving a Mega-Pheonix Down.

Once we were all up and healed, we carried on attacking as if nothing had happened. Kyjiva returned to using it's standard attacks.

"Martha!" I asked, "How much health does this thing have? You were the one that Scanned it, right? I forgot to ask!"

"Umm ... I can't remember. I don't think I saw! Should I have a look?"

"Don't bother. Either way we have to kill it."

I attacked with Hurt, and as I did so the ability sound went off. I checked, and saw I had learnt Mad Rush.

"Woo-Hoo! Go, Amy!" Lillie said, punching the air and evading a Blizzaga spell at the same time.

In the time it too for Martha to power up another Darkness attack, I must have tried five times for Mad Rush to work. It kept failing. Lillie also learnt Fireworks before Martha used Darkness but instead of using it she waited with a hi-potion, allowing me to try Mad Rush again. It failed again. Martha's Darkness finally worked and Lillie healed her.

"Hey, let's attack at the same time!" Martha said, giggling. It was an obsession of hers, she loved making everyone attack at the exact same time on FFX2. It was actually how we beat the very first boss we did on the game (the Flame Dragon in chapter 1, DUH). She got fixated with it from then on.

Anyway, we waited a few seconds for Lillie to be able to attack again, before we all charged forward and brought out swords down on Kyjiva. Or in my case, claws.

As we stepped back, we were dumbstruck as thousands of pyreflies rose from Kyjiva's crumbling body. Thousands more kept coming out, until Kyjiva was nothing more than air around us.

"Nobody messes with us!" I grinned, doing my victory dance along side Martha and Lillie.

_::Aftermath::_

"That was a pretty hard fiend," I sighed, letting myself drop to the floor, with Otto my racoon running all over. They agreed and sat down besides me.

"None of it would have happened if you hadn't gone off searching for your precious treasure chests, Martha!" Lillie spoke up. "We would have gone down that new path and never have come across it!"

Martha protested and soon her and Lillie were arguing. I screamed at them to shut up before I keep on speaking. "Think about it! We got past that git. True, if Martha hadn't left it wouldn't have happened, but if it was for _Martha _we wouldn't be here! We only just scrapped past, but would you change things? We're still here, same as if we hadn't fought it, but _now_ we've got pride of actually beating that thing."

"Wise words, Amy," Lillie joked, before apologising to Martha, who said sorry back.

We were silent for a moment. Martha wondered aloud, "Why would we have gone down the new path ...?" And I explained our whole theory about a hide-out or something being there. We decided to check it out.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Lillie said, putting her arms out on front of us and blocking our path back towards to entrance. "What if there's another fiend, a similar one? A _stronger_ one?"

The three of us looked at each other. "Well, we've come this far," I said, "What's stopping us now, right?"

"Right!" They agreed.

**A/N:** Phew. Omigod, this is by far my longest ever chapter, it's four pages! Please review.


	9. Faith

**A/N: **Hopefully this chapter will be as long as the last one! I'm going to start up-date chapters really quickly. Think of it as making up for the huge gaps between chapters that happened before! I'm gonna start dedicating all my chapters to someone. You don't have to have reviewed from the beginning or anything, I'll just maybe pick my favourite review etc! Thanks to everyone who reviewed chapter 8!

Disclaimer: I don't own ANYTHING! Except this storyline, yaye!

This chapter is dedicated to **Paine-171229**! You have reviewed mine and all my friends stories, so you totally ROCK!

**Faith**

"Ooohh, just how long is this path anyway?" Martha moaned. The path was now making it's way along a cliff edge. We were surrounded in darkness, I could only just see Lillie in front of me, and Martha behind.

"We must have reached Omega's lair by now!" Lillie said, leaning against the cliff edge.

I turned around and stared back along the path we had just come. You could see further when you looked behind, because of the light from the caves. My attention was drawn to an area to my right, miles behind us, all the way back near the actual caves of the ruins.

"Look!" I said, pointing to where my attention was, "This path _doesn't_ lead to Omega's lair! Can you see that area back there? _That's_ Omega's resting place! We're way past it."

"So ... where does _this_ path lead then?" Lillie asked, squinting so she could see where I was indicating.

"No idea. You still up for checking it out?" I asked, facing the others. Martha gave me the thumbs up and we carried on walking. After five minutes of continuous walking, further into the gloom, Lillie pointed out we were descending. The path was heading _down_and it was getting extremely steep.

Martha stopped, "Do we keep on going?"

"We might as well. I mean, we've come this far."

"On we go!"

_::Where The Path Ends::_

"A dead-end!" Lillie sighed, "We came all the way here for a dead-end?"

"Aw, man, that bites," I complained. The three of us leaned against the huge rock which was blocking the path, making it a dead-end. "So, what now?"

"We just ... head back, then." None of us moved.

"Wonder what Holly and Victoria are doing. Buddy's not contacted us yet so I guess nobody's found Maechen yet," Martha said, inspecting the boulder blocking our path.

Lillie's face was scrunched up in confusion. She looked at her watch. "Hey, guys, it's been almost four hours since we were dropped off. Didn't we all decide we'd regroup after two hours? How come no one called us?"

I checked the communicator. "There's no signal. We must be too far out. We were still in the caves two hours ago so we probably lost contact as soon as we arrived."

"That sucks."

"Yeah ..." Martha mumbled. A few minutes later she exclaimed, "What's this?"

"What's what?" I said, peering her shoulder. She pointed at what appeared to be a small dial, camouflaged with the rock. "Try it."

Lillie turned the dial 360 degrees clockwise, and we stepped back. Suddenly, the path beneath us collapsed. It turned out we had stepped on a panel, which had swung opened in reaction the dial. We dropped down onto a stone slide that spiralled downhill.

_::At The Bottom Of The Slide::_

"Oof!" I cried out as we hit the bottom. Everything was pitch black because I had my eyes closed. I just lay there, eyes clamped shut, listening to the mumbles of the others. After a few minutes I managed to open my eyes. Lillie and Martha were lying down next to me. From the way they were acting I guessed they had they're eyes closed too, but I couldn't see their faces. They were hidden by the mass of pink, purple and white flowers.

"Flowers ...?" I muttered, glancing around. "Whoa!"

"Huh?" Martha and Lillie said in unison.

"Come on, get up!" They didn't move. "_Get up_!" I yelled in their ears.

"Bugger off ..." Martha slurred.

"_We're in the Farplane_!!" I called. Ha, that made them sit up.

"What?!" Martha shrieked, gazing around, her mouth wide open in astonishment. "H-h-how? We didn't come ... that far!"

Lillie was gob smacked, but she reasoned with Martha. "The path _did_ start heading down at one point. And then the slide, well, that was pretty steep. And lengthy. But, some one built the path. Why would they build it to the Farplane?"

"Because ... all other entrances were blocked?" I suggested. "Were we are now, in time, it's only about a month after the end of FFX2. In the game, you can't enter the Farplane because things were going wrong. That was Shuyin and Vegnagun messing things up. But, what if the Farplane stayed the same, still dangerous to enter? And the holes stopped becoming functional?"

"There'd be no way into the Farplane! So some person needed to get _in_to the Farplane? Martha asked, puzzled.

Suddenly, I had a brainwave. "Or what it somebody needed to get out?"

"Nemesis," Lillie muttered.

I shook my head, "If he needed out, he couldn't have built the path. Unless ... Unless, maybe for a few seconds, he had his chance to escape. The Farplane doorway in Guadosalam might have been unguarded for a small period of time!"

"He snuck out," Martha continued, "Came to the Omega Ruins, made his own opening, and built a path for easier access!"

I stood up and started pacing. "Remember what we said earlier? About the path being built sometime before the end of FFX and FFX2? That's when he got out! Instead of sneaking past a guard at Guadosalam, he could have escaped during the period of FFX and afterwards, but before X2, when no body guarded the place! Or, he could of escaped during X2 when the holes had been newly made!"

"Uh, guys ..." Martha said.

"So, any guesses on when he made his break for freedom?" Lillie asked,, ignoring Martha.

"Um, I think it's more likely he would have ran during X2. Mainly because of all the problems that were already happening in the Farplane about Shuyin and so on. Everybody's attention was on somebody else!"

"Uh, guys!!"

"Yeah, it fits in, doesn't it? I'm just wondering why the holes might have stopped become functional-"

"Uh, GUYS!!!"

"_What_?"

Martha pointed behind me. I turned around and guess what I saw? The one, the only ... Trema.

"Very good theory," he sneered, advancing on us, "Amazing how you got so much right ... But, amazing as it may be, it's information to the enemy and I can't allow it to spread!"

"Why would _you_ ... stop this information from spreading?" I enquired. "Are, are you helping him? Nemesis?"

"Maybe so, but what's it to you?" He mocked, "You're not going to be able to tell anyone soon! Lips sealed forever ... What a pity ..." He started shaking his head slightly in a sardonic way, laughing quietly. Then he withdrew his weapon and snarled, "You're not going to win, so don't pain yourself by trying!" And at that, we were in battle.

_::Ten Minutes Later::_

Things were not going too well. In fact, things were disastrous. Trema was totally pummelling us, which isn't a surprise really. We were miles away from the Level 90 standard you're meant to have before you take on Trema. And anyway, this was Trema resurrected, of course he was going to be dangerous. I'm not going to even bother explain the fight, it's a waste of time. After all, I'm sure you've guessed _we_ weren't the ones that dealt with the Big Bad Dead Guy (i.e. Trema). So, I'll start the explanation from the end of _our_ turn at fighting. I'll only get humiliated if I start any earlier. Here's what happened:

"I told you not to try ..." Big Bad Dead Guy laughed, pretending to pity us. Hmph, yeah right.

"Being cocky never helped anyone. You'll get what's coming to you," I said, only it came out in more of a whisper. I wasn't exactly bursting with energy. At any rate, Big Bad Dead Guy (now to be known as BBDG for short) went into hysterics at this.

"I'd like to see anyone try to destroy me. You just think of me as invincible!"

That's when BBDG discovered what it felt like to be wrong. Shame it wasn't me that taught him the lesson, though. More information? Read on.

"What the-?" Martha yelled, as BBDG was engulfed in a immense beam of light, and surrounded by colourful explosions. He was being attacked from behind. "Where to I recognise that attack from?" Martha mumbled. I knew what she meant, I recognised it too, and so did Lillie, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. The attack lasted for an era, but when it finally came to a stop we realised that it had been worth. I think you've grasped what had happened. BBDG was not as unconquerable as he made out to be.

"Invincible, my ass," I spat. The three of us walked around BBDG's dissolving body, to try and find our saviour. And our saviour was ... Bahamut's Fayth.

**A/N:** This chapter is one and a half paragraphs into five pages. My longest ever! I'm getting really positive reviews, so please keep them up!


	10. Homesick

**A/N: **I'm actually getting a bit more exciting about this, because I did have an original plot but it wasn't that good ... Anyway, I've changed it and it's way better than before! I finished writing chapter nine last night, and decided to start chapter ten straight away, so that's why they're being posted at the same time.

Disclaimer: I do not own, and am not a part of, Square-Enix and their produce!

This chapter is dedicated to **trajik007**. You reviewed chapter eight when I already had a dedication for chapter nine, so here's your dedication! I warn you, I'm rubbish at mushiness so don't expect a lot!

_::What Happened Last Chapter::_

"Invincible, my ass," I spat. The three of us walked around BBDG's dissolving body, to try and find our saviour. And our saviour was ... Bahamut's Fayth.

**Homesick**

"I knew I recognised that attack ... It was Mega-Flare," I said faintly.

"Indeed it was." the Fayth said floating at our eye level, "Since were no longer needed we returned to our human state, we have been drifting as pyreflies with every other soul in the Farplane. No longer needed by summoners, our strength has been diminishing. We may still be powerful by human standards, but no longer by our own. We saw what was happening and had to help. We're sorry we couldn't have come sooner, but the appropriate procedure that was crucial in defeating Trema was not a time-saving method. Our strength was no were near strong enough to kill Trema in one attack, which was necessary to ensure victory. No, it was by no means strong enough. Individually, that is. We combined our strength into one of us – namely, me – and fortunately that was enough to dispose of him, Trema."

"We're sorry to have caused you so much trouble. We ... got ourselves into the mess," Lillie said.

"Do not be sorry. The three of us, you helped us, in more ways than one. Firstly, you gave us, the previous Fayth, a position in life again. It was only for a few minutes, but it has certainly healed wounds deep beneath the surface. Years ago, when we were imprisoned in statues, we wanted to rest and we managed to. None of us would return to those statues, those temples, but helping people is something that will never leave us. Thank you."

"We're glad we could do that for you," I smiled. "Is it possible you could help us again?" The Fayth nodded in reply and I continued, "Do you know anything about Nemesis? Every piece of information will be helpful."

"Ah, yes. We heard your discussion earlier, before Trema arrived. Forgive us for the eavesdropping but we have all your answers. Firstly, Trema is, or was, Nemesis's first hand man. What Trema's job actually was we do not know, but he did help Nemesis escape. Secondly, Nemesis escaped through the hole on Djose Temple, which is why he attack there first. He did this when Lady Yuna and her companions were fighting Vegnagun. Our attention, the Fayth's, was focused on what was happening there, that we did not notice Nemesis escaping. He went to the Omega Ruins and discovered he could build a path into the farplane from there. The reason he went to the ruins were merely because nobody had been there since before Yu Yevon was destroyed. Thirdly, you are right about the holes being sealed up, and the Farplane entrance in Guadosalam still being guarded. The Fayth sealed those holes and we made sure nobody entered the Farplane. We wanted to keep Spira safe. Unfortunately, we have not done a incredibly good job. So, there are your answers."

"Thank you," I nodded.

"One more thing," the Fayth said, lowering to floor level and gazing up at us, "We heard you talk of a 'Final Fantasy X and X2'. You also sometimes said FFX and FFX2. Am I right in saying they are simply abbreviations on the original?"

"Uh, yes, they are ..." Martha said nervously.

"I would like to ask – what are these things you talk of?" And so we explained. We told the Fayth about the game being about Spira, what happened in both, how we had been sucked in after completing the game, and how we were now trapped in Spira, and didn't know how to get home. While we were speaking of those things, the Fayth stood there listening to our every word, believing what we said. It was also then, that I first realised just how homesick we all were. In the time we had been in Spira ... we had never thought of it as real life, we had thought of it as another game ... and then it really hit home. Where we ever going to returned in England?

_::Aboard The Celsius::_

After we had talked to the fayth, he transported us back to the Omega Ruins, besides our airship. We flew to Macalania in silence, me once again at the wheel. We left the airship near the Temple at the bottom of the lake, and walked into the deteriorating woods, still not uttering a word. It was only when we saw the airship Celsius waiting at the other end of the woods, near the thunder Plains, that a dared say anything.

"Will we ... ever get back ...?" I didn't expect an answer.

Lillie sighed, "I don't know, but I hope so."

"Yeah," we agreed.

As soon as we entered the Bridge of the airship Brother was on us quickly than a duck to water. He was screaming things at us in Al Bhed. Things that aren't suitable for a PG-13, but that's all I'll say.

"Lyms tufh, Brother, E's cina drao'ja kud y kuut ahuikr naycuh!" (Calm down, Brother, I'm sure they've got a good enough reason!) Buddy said, trying to stop Brother from bawling.

"Oayr nekrd," (Yeah right) Brother muttered under his breath but listened to us anyway.

We told everyone everything – well, almost everything. We told them about finding the path, then fighting the fiend Kyjiva, how we walked down the path to find it led _past_ Omega's lair, next when we fell down the slide into the Farplane and our discussion about what might have happened, then Trema came (we didn't make our selves sound as pathetic as we really had been) and finally about the Fayth killing Trema and telling us what we needed to know. We didn't tell anyone about the last thing we'd talked to the Fayth about, besides Holly and Victoria, who we told while everyone else was talking about what we had found out.

"Where's Maechen?" I asked.

"Here I am," a voice said, obviously Maechen's. He was standing by the steps near Shinra's station. Apparently he had been on Mt. Gagazet (we had guessed Zanarkand. Oh well, not that far off!) and Baralai, Nooj and Gippal had found him. That was one hour after searching.

Anyway, Maechen had been listening to everything we had explained above, so there wasn't much to fill him in on. He had been told the lot about Nemesis attacking Djose Temple while the others had waited for Lillie, Martha and me (opps ...). Anyway, it turned out Maechen had some very interesting things to tell us.

"Where should I start?" Maechen said, as we all settled down into a comfy position. We could tell this was going to be a long one. "Nemesis lived about 200 years ago, an ordinary human, who went by the name of Lae. He did not have the most enjoyably life. Rather, it was the exact opposite. Sin destroyed his house, village, family and friends when he was only young. He left his village's ruins and set off for Luca, planning to just live on the streets until he could work. Instead, his was found by some monks who were visiting Luca to hear confessions of the local and pray for them. The monks took Lae to Bevelle and placed in him an orphanage. He hated it there, for obvious reasons, but he did not have long to think about it's bad points as he was adopted almost straight away by an elderly couple. He despised living with them just as much, but under the law of Yevon he was their child now and had to stay, at least until he was past a certain age. When he became the required age, eighteen, he left Bevelle and went back to Luca, trying to find a job. A few years later he was working in a market stall for extremely low pay. His neighbours despised him and so did his customers, the reason for that was Lae had become an awfully violent man. He loathed people as must than they loathed him back. Even more, perhaps. Eventually, Lae got sick of being hated – he never once considered it was his fault – and did the one thing he felt was right. He became a fayth. He detested Sin more than people so it was an excellent idea to him. But soon he learnt that being a Fayth was not all glory. The Summoners took all the fame and he was never thought of as worth anything. It angered him greatly. One day, the worst happened. Some trouble-making teenagers decided to take his fayth from the Temple of which he rested and hide it, just like somebody had done to the aeon Yojimbo. This was different, though. With Yojimbo, he was hidden so Summoners could not train and there for would not go on their pilgrimage, but with Lae's aeon ... it was simple because nobody liked him. Ever since, he was lost, not one Summoner or person discovered him again. Why, even I don't know where he was placed! But when you, Lady Yuna and your guardians, defeated Yu Yevon he was realised with the others, and sent to the Farplane. However, revenged, I'm sure, still lingered in his mind, and from what you have told me I'm not wrong."

**A/N: **So, what did you think? You don't know how many times I re-wrote Lae's (aka. Nemesis) past. About five times, I think! Please review now!


	11. The Hidden Aeon

**A/N:** Yay, people read my story! I realised I had made a little mistake in the last chapter. When Maechen was talking about Lae's past it said a few years after he left Bevelle (eighteen) he became a fayth, which made him twenty-odd. But in chapter 4 I describe him as in his forties. Sorry!

Disclaimer: This gets boring.

Dedication time! This chapter is devoted (heh heh, cool word XD ) to **Anime101**. I know you've just started reviewing, but you reviewed all my chapters and, well, your story's brill! (P.S. To Martha, if you read chapter 8 you will see _that_ chapter is dedicated to you!)

**The Hidden Aeon**

After Maechen gave us his little talked, he requested to be returned to Mt. Gagazet. God knows what for. As Brother flew the airship to Gagazet, I went to the cabin to think. I sat down on one of the sofas up near the beds. Barkeep wasn't in there, probably in his own room, if he had one. Anyway, as I was thinking about various things, such as going home, the talk with Maechen, I suddenly remembered the talk with the Fayth. I don't know why, but a certain part came into my head.

"_We're sorry to have caused you so much trouble. We ... got ourselves into the mess," Lillie said._

"_Do not be sorry. The three of us, you helped us, in more ways than one. Firstly, you gave us, the previous Fayth, a position in life again._ _It was only for a few minutes, but it has certainly healed wounds deep beneath the surface. Years ago, when we were imprisoned in statues, we wanted to rest and we managed to. None of us would return to those statues, those temples, but helping people is something that will never leave us. Thank you."_

"_We're glad we could do that for you," I smiled. "Is it possible you could help us again?" The Fayth nodded in reply and I continued, "Do you know anything about Nemesis? Every piece of information will be helpful."_

Of course there was more, but a certain part stuck in my head.

"_The three of us, you helped us, in more ways than one. Firstly,"_

Firstly? It was then that it occurred to me that hadn't even been a 'Secondly'. Was it because there wasn't one? Or because I cut him off before he got the chance to say it and then forgot? Then, I didn't know why I was making it such as big deal. So what, we hadn't heard the 'Secondly' part! But, I still couldn't help feeling maybe it was something worth knowing. I _was_ going to think more about it, but my mind was taken off it when I heard voices. I got off the sofa and crept over to edge, staying out of view. There was nobody in the cabin, but I could hearing yelling from the corridor.

Sure enough, as the yelling got louder I saw Rikku storm into the cabin and plonk (hehe, groovy word, XD) herself on a barstool. She let out a huge agitated sigh and put her head down on the table.

"Rikku ..." Gippal was standing in the doorway, an apologetic look on his face. Rikku ignored him. "Look, Rikku, I'm sorry!"

Huh? I thought, Sorry for what?

"You _always_ do that!" She screamed, "You_ always_ humiliate me in front of my friends. Even when we were little you did! You were _never _nice to me, you _constantly_ teased me and made fun of me!"

"Not all the time ..." He muttered feebly, but Rikku wasn't done yet.

"Why can't you _ever_ be kind to me?! I _hate_ you! I _HATE_ you!" Rikku was crying now. Well, not really crying, more like howling. Something told me I wasn't meant to see that ...

"Rikku, please!" Gippal walked over to her slowly and tried to hug her, but she pushed him a way.

"Leave me alone," She muttered weakly. Gippal kept trying to apologise and hug her, but she kept shoving him away. He wouldn't give up (men, eh? lol). Eventually, though, she couldn't be bothered and Gippal had his arms wrapped around her. She turned away from the bar and stood up gradually, her arms now around him as well. It wasn't really a hug any longer – more of an embrace (if you can tell the difference : P). Gippal was looking down at her. She looked back up with a smile on her face. A real one, not fake. Gippal leant closer until they were centimetres apart. Then they began to kiss.

I stopped watching then, I reckoned I had seen too much.

_::Still In The Cabin::_

I am _so_ not a sensitive person.

After Rikku and Gippal left the cabin to return to the Bridge (or possibly the Deck or Engine Room for a little _alone_ time, tee hee-hee) I lay back on one of the beds thinking about them. And what was I thinking? Not 'aw how sweet!' or even 'they're cute together' (which of course they are!). No, I was thinking 'Heh heh, the perfect come back if I get into an argument with one of them!' See? How insensitive is that?! Very.

I decided there was no longer a point in me staying alone in the cabin so I left. As I was in the corridor leading to the lift I turned around and noticed Barkeep returning to his usual position behind the bar. (Does he do that on purpose? How come he's always there when you want him and he disappears when you want him to? Does he have 'Hypello intuition' instead or something?)

_::Bridge::_

Anyway, I returned to the Bridge to find we had arrived at Mt. Gagazet. Everyone, besides Barkeep, was there.

"Hey, where'd you go?" Baralai asked, making most people look at me.

Uh-oh, can't say Cabin, Rikku and Gippal will know I watched. What if somebody else went to the Engine Room or Deck? "Uh, just went somewhere to think." Thankfully I got away with that. After all, I was hardly lying, was I?

"Well, I must bide my farewell," Maechen said, walking up the stairs and along the corridor. "I will be at Mt. Gagazet for quite some time, if you need me again!" Then the lift door closed. As soon as we saw him on the mountain side (how can a frail old man like that walked against the winds up there?) Buddy asked where it was to now.

"Hey, what exactly does your ocillar finder pick up?" Holy asked.

"Anything, besides people, if we did finding Maechen would have been a synch. There was one that could find people in the other airship, but not in this one," Buddy said from his chair. Of course, the airship in X. You use it to find Yuna, I thought.

"Anything?" Holly continued. Buddy nodded. "Will it find previous Chambers Of Fayth?"

Everyone stared at her confused, until I piped up with, "So we can find Nemesis's Chamber? maybe finding out what aeon could be will help us. You never know, and it's not as though we have anything else to do."

Shinra looked as though he was thinking. Then he said, "Evidently, it won't pick up actual Chambers Of Fayth, but it _will_ pick up pervious aeon dwellings. We can search for pervious aeon dwellings, then cross off the ones that come up if we are already aware of the aeon." And that's what we did.

The ocillar finder singled out fifteen aeon dwellings. We managed to cross out ten (all the original aeons, the Magus Sisters counted as three different aeons). In three places there were two aeons marked (that's if you _ex_clude the Magus Sisters).

The point is, this part took ages, we didn't understand everything at first, and I am _not_, I repeat _not_ going to explain everything. So instead, I'm going to make a summary of what happened.

_::Summary Of What Happened::_

The first place we went was Macalania. Turned out, Yojimbo's real resting place – not the one in the Calm Lands – used to be there until he was moved. Then he was replaced with Shiva (how kind ...).

Next we went to Djose. Turns out the Fayth forgot to tell us something (and this was not the 'Secondly' part, either). When Lae first became a Fayth, his aeon rested in Djose Temple. Until he was stolen. Then _he_ got replaced with Ixion.

After that we went to Kilika Temple. Before Ifrit lived there (oh no, not _another_ stolen aeon) a previous aeon lived there. We didn't find out the name. Let's just say No-Name used to live there, okay?

Our fourth destination (that sounds so pompous, don't know why) was the first lonered island east of the Omega Ruins. That was where Lae's aeon rested. We didn't exactly find anything interesting, but we did find out he was a water element-based aeon. I can remember thinking, So that's where the water aeon is! The reason for that being Ixion is thunder, Shiva is blizzard and Ifrit is fire. Look, no water!

I just realised I got something wrong above. We actually half managed to eleven places. The cause for that? Well, the final destination was Zanarkand. In FFX, Scary Green Zombie Man (SGZM?) says you have to go see Yunalesca, and that the aeon that used to be there no longer was. We could half remove it from our list because we knew that an aeon used to be there, but we also didn't know what one. Anyway, we had a look at it again and found out the aeon that used to be there before Yunalesca ambushed it. We didn't find out it's name, but we _did_ fin out something. You remember No-Name (look at the Kilika Temple section above)? Well, No-Name used to reside in Zanarkand. Then when Yunalesca took over it was moved to Kilika Temple. _Finally_ it was stolen (not a-bloody-gain!) and taken somewhere else. The weird thing about that? There was no more places to search. So where exactly did it go?

_::Back On The Bridge::_

"Fung dryd uid, csyndo byhdc!" (Work that out, smarty pants!) Brother yelled at Shinra, after Yuna had just mentioned the missing destination.

"I'm just a kid," He said in reply. Everyone groaned.

"Quit arguing," Buddy said, "Our main focus is Nemesis. I'm worried, he hasn't done anything yet. That could mean he's going to strike soon."

"Then we just have to get him before he does!" Rikku said excitedly.

"Don't you think we should train or something first?" I said, "I mean, I know you can defeat Vegnagun and Sin but Nemesis _is_ dead, as well as being a previous aeon. And e all know what he did to Djose. hey, didn't Nemesis's aeon used to live there before he was stolen? Maybe he struck there first not because he escaped there, but because he had the most hatred for it."

"It's an idea," Victoria said.

"And," Nooj butted in, "It may be a clue. He struck Djose first because he hated it the most, right? That's what you're saying. So where's he going to have the second most hatred for?"

Everyone thought was a moment. Then I said, "Bevelle. Or Luca."

"The question is which one?" Lillie mumbled.

**A/N:** Ooohh! Bevelle or Luca? (Not that you're deciding, lol, I already know!) Read chapter 12 to find out!


	12. Bevelle Or Luca?

**A/N:** Yay, chapter 12! Hmmm, don't have much else to say, except sorry about taking so long to up-date, and this is EXTREMLY short. This is more of a little filler between chapter 11 and 13 than it is chapter itself. School's started again (urgh) so I don't have as much time to write _and_ I have serious writer's block, so bear with me, people!

Disclaimer: Ditto.

This is isn't much of a dedication, but this is for all those people who died in the school in Russia during the hostage seize.

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**Bevelle Or Luca?**

We were stuck. No, I don't mean in mud or anything, I mean about what to do. We _knew_ (ok, had a good enough idea) that Nemesis was going to strike either Bevelle or Luca next. Problem was, which one? We didn't even have an idea that would let us find out. Nothing was coming to us. In the end, we had to guess. See that? The soon-to-be rescuers of Spira were going to _guess_ where the enemy was.

"Well, I say Bevelle, 


	13. Machina City

**A/N:** Once again, I apologise for the size of chapter 12! Thanks to all of my reviewers. When I started writing this story, I had most of it planned out, but since then I must have changed it at least three times! I didn't know how this was going to end, but with a little help from Martha and Victoria during school, and a extremely boring History lesson, I've finally figured it out! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own ANYTHING ... expect from everything I own.

This chapter is dedicated to **Victoria **and** Holly**.

**P.S.** The fiends that we fight in the Mi'ihen Highroad are all based on what kind of fiends are there in FFX, not X2, because I currently do not have that information at my disposal!

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**Machina City**

"Hey, do you have five gil I can borrow?" Lillie asked, as Martha and I handed over our money to the man on the stall selling fruits.

"Here," I said, handing her ten gil, "But I want the change!" Lillie laughed, payed the man for her apple and handed me back the remaining five gil. It was over an hour since we had arrived in Luca, and after fifteen minutes Lillie, Martha and me had found our selves drifting away from the others. Nit that they were really bothered; in fact, I think they were quite pleased.

"This I boring! Why can't there be some fiends here? I mean, I'm not saying I particularly enjoy killing, but at least it's something to do!" Martha moaned, plonking herself down on a nearby bench.

"We could go to the Mi'ihen Highroad ..." I suggested.

Lillie thought, frowned, then said, "Yeah, but we have to stay here, don't we? In case Nemesis shows up."

"Listen," I said, facing the two of them, "First of all, it's more than fifty percent chance he'll attack Bevelle, not Luca. Secondly, the Mi'ihen Highroad's only a tiny bit past the outskirts of Luca – if the others call needing help we can be there just as fast as we would have been if we were still _in_ Luca!"

"You have a point," Lillie muttered, "Okay, we're off the Highroad!"

That set Martha off singing 'Follow the grassy Highroad' – her version of 'Follow the yellow brick road' from the Wizard of Oz. By the time we had reached the outskirts of Luca she was signing 'We're off to slaughter some fiends – some wonderful fiends from Spira'.

_::Mi'ihen Highroad North And Central::_

I decided to change out of the Trainer dress sphere when we were about seven fiend battles into the Highroad. Don't get me wrong, I love Otto, but it takes _years_ to learn anything on that sphere, so I changed to Warrior. Lillie had stayed in Black Mage while Martha had transformed from Black Mage to Gun Mage. Martha had recently learned Scan and was know into the Fiend Hunter abilities – Lillie was still learning Fira.

"You're going down!" Martha yelled as a Dual Horn came charging at us.

I dodged the Dual Horn's attack and shouted over to Martha, who was behind it, "You can learn Fire Breath from this fiend! Try not to kill it too fast!"

Martha scanned it so we could see it's health and guess how much we could harm it. It didn't take very long. After the fiend realised it was going to be dust soon, it unleashed the one and only Fire Breath.

"Thanks!" Martha yelled as I tossed a potion to Lillie, who was the most harmed. She then hit the Dual Horn with a Blizzard spell and a bell sound went off signalling she learnt Fira.

"No use in this fight, is it?" She smirked, throwing another Blizzard spell at the fiend the very second I attacked it, causing me to get hit in the side by the spell.

"Whoops! Sorry, Amy," She yelled, giving me a potion seeing as I wasn't that badly damaged. I hit the Dual Horn with a final blow and then it was pyreflies.

"Eight down – many thousands to go," I said, as we began to walk away from the swirling mass of pyreflies. A few seconds after that we were ambushed by two Blizzard Flans (I forget there real name). This was Lillie's area, so me and Martha attacked the second Flan between us while Lillie dealt with the first.

_::Mi'ihen Highroad Travel Agency::_

"Maybe we should turn back now," Martha said as we entered the Travel Agency, "You know, once we've maybe had something to eat here. IF we're too far away when they call us ..."

"Relax. Come on, we've only been gone an hour and a half. They know we can look after our selves and anyway, if Nemesis does attack they'll call in the others for help as well, won't they?" Lillie argued. Martha seemed to loosen up after hearing her say that, so she happily ate some food before setting off with us to the Southern part of the Highroad – or more formally known as the 'New road'.

_::Mi-ihen Highroad North End::_

Barely ten minutes later we were at the North End. You know where that is – the part where the Highroad ends and Mushroom Rock starts. You meet Seymour there in FFX and he tells the guards to let you past, remember? Anyway, we were busy debating whether to travel down the Old Road or travel in to Mushroom Rock. Eventually we decided we were sick of the Highroad, and went to Mushroom Rock. However, all three of us agreed to keep on walking straight onto the beach, instead of going to the Youth League Headquarters and getting ambushed by Elma.

_::Mushroom Rock, Beach::_

I'm sure you know where I'm talking about when I say the beach, so I won't explain. Anyhow, we all of a sudden found ourselves travelling peacefully (well, about as peacefully as you can get when you're attacked by fiends every few seconds) up the Djose Highroad. There are seriously too many Highroads in Spira.

_::Djose Highroad::_

When we reached the fork in the road up at the top, we sat down and studied our dress spheres, monitoring how many abilities we had learnt. Martha had by far learnt the most, seeing as Gun Mage doesn't need much AP. She had learnt almost half of the Fiend hunter abilities. Lillie had learnt Blizzara and Thundara while I had become skilled at Sentinel and a few various other Swordplay skills.

_::Moonflow::_

There was no point in us going to Djose Temple, so we veered left and went to the Moonflow. As we were walking along talking and fighting any fiends that came at us, In guess none of us thought 'Shouldn't we go back to Luca?' In fact, I never even thought once about the others in Luca or Bevelle as my mind was too busy focusing on things in the Moonflow. I think it was the same with the other two. Anyway, an hour later (it had been at least three hours since we had been in Luca, though none of us noticed) we arrived at the Shoopuf Port, South Bank. We were waiting for the next Shoopuf to arrive (which you could see making it's way across from the North Bank) in order to make our way across the Guadosalam. For some reason, we very much felt like visiting Leblanc! At any rate, when the Shoopuf entered the port, and the passengers climbed off, an extremely unexpected sight met our eyes. Two of the passengers on the Shoopuf ... were Holly and Victoria!

"Oh my God ..." Lillie muttered, "I was not expecting _that_!"

"Hi!" Victoria screamed, causing others to stare at her but she never noticed, instead she came running over with Holly tagging behind. "We thought we'd have to travel all the way to Luca to find you! I bet your in the same boat as us – you felt bored and wanted to do something, right? You walked away a bit then found yourself miles away from where you originally where!"

"That's about right," I agreed, smiling, "So, you were bored, too?"

"Definitely," Holly nodded glumly, "Not so much as a scream, let alone Nemesis destroying the place."

"Yeah, " Victoria said, "But that's good. If Nemesis did the same to Bevelle as he'd done to Djose Temple ... well, you know what I mean!" We nodded and Victoria added as an after thought, "In Truth, I don't think anything is more devastating then Nemesis!"

I said to them in a dreary voice, "You obviously haven't seen 'Matron Annihilation'."

Victoria and Holly looked at us in shock, surprise and confusion as Martha, Lillie and me burst into hysterics.

_::Moonflow South Bank::_

We didn't bother taking the Shoopuf to Guadosalam, instead we sat on the bank of the Moonflow, watching the lake.

"So, did you have any problems in Macalania, the Thunder Plains or Guadosalam?" I asked, letting my newly-bare feet dangle into the lake like the others.

"A bit," Holly said, thinking, "Macalania had pretty strong fiends, I had to get us to Flee quite a few times, but we learnt some abilities – a lot less than you, though-"

"Yeah, well, we did have easy fiends," I pointed out fairly.

Holly grinned and continued, "Then in the Thunder Plains ... erm ... Oh, yeah, an Iron Giant used White Mage hater – you see, stayed in Thief and Vic stayed in White Mage, so we had to escape from that, too. In Guadosalam ... We were assaulted by Tobli's Hypello's. That was _scary_." So Holly told us in more detail what happened. Once she'd finished Martha explained what happened to us.

_::Same Place, One Hour Later::_

"A rabbit," Victoria said.

Lillie exclaimed, "A rabbit?! It doesn't look like a rabbit! I'd say a-"

"Pineapple?" I piped up. I could feel their heads turn to look at me. "I'm not looking at the one you are, I'm looking at _that_ once," I pointed. I heard Vic let out an 'Oh'.

The five of us were lying on our backs, looking up at the sky and studying the clouds. I asked which one Vic and Lil were actually looking at, and when I gazed at it, it _did_ actually look like a pineapple. I didn't tell them this, though.

"I'm gonna go for a swim," Martha said, jumping up.

"Change your dress sphere," Holly said, absentmindedly, "To Thief or Lady Luck, something like that."

"Why?" I enquired, squinting at Holly.

"Because they're both kinda like swimming costumes, aren't they? Well, Thief is more than Lady Luck." So Martha changed to Thief and set off for the water, shortly followed by me and Holly doing the same (Holly didn't need to change her dress sphere though) and then Victoria and Lillie came a few minutes after that, mirroring us.

_::Moonflow Lake::_

Swimming in the Moonflow was brilliant! I was surprised nobody else did, but then again, people probably didn't like swimming above a ruined city. Can't blame then, either, it _was_ kinda creepy, but it wasn't that creepy, otherwise we wouldn't have explored it.

I bet you saw that coming. 'Otherwise we wouldn't have explored it'. Just to let you know, I'm not lying, we did actually explore the place. It was all Martha's idea – and a very good one at that. We were a bit worried that we wouldn't be able to hold our breath for long enough, under Victoria pointed out if we managed to get inside some buildings they would in reality be empty of water. Which was true, but we were still unsure. In the end, though, we just went for it. Can't hurt to try, can it?

_::Machina City::_

Victoria was right, and we found a water-less house. We were quite worn out from all the swimming, so we rested for a little bit. After a while I went over to the only window (it was filled with glass, before you say _anything_). It was quite small, but had a perfect view of all the city! I squinted to try and make out details on all the buildings. As I scanned the area, I noticed a very big building, almost squashed between two others. It had fallen into place so that it was impossible to see from above, looking down. That would have been why nobody have discovered it. Guess what it was? A Temple.

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**A/N:** Good? I'm gonna write chapter 14 straight away now, and post these at the same time, but I'd still be grateful if you reviewed this chapter!


	14. Temple Under The Lake

**A/N: **It had just hit me that this will be my fourteenth chapter! It may not mean much to you readers, but before this story I never made it past four chapters, and now I'm ten ahead of that!

Disclaimer: I own what I own, and don't what I do not.

This chapter is dedicated to ... **ME!** Joke! It's really dedicated to **Corina**, because I enjoy reading your emails and your peanut joke truly rocks.

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**Temple Under The Lake**

Do you remember what I said a while ago, about when we searched for all the Aeons and after we had finished they was a missing destination? Well, this Temple was the 'missing destination'. The reason it never showed up on the ocillar-thingy? Maybe I should start from when we entered the Temple.

As soon as I had noticed the Temple, I told the others. They all came rushing over to the tiny window to see for them selves. They were not disappointed. We made the decision to go investigate.

Entering the Temple was a bit tricky. You see, as soon as we would open the Temple door, all water would go flooding in. We managed to come up with a plan of action. ON the signal of three ( well, it could hardly be the count of three, could it? We were under water!) we all opened the Temple door and was carried in through the force of the water. As soon as we were in we moved round the side of the door and pushed with all our strength (which isn't a lot, in truth) and were able to slam the door shut. There obviously was still water in the Temple, but it was only waist-height, and seeing as we were already drenched, it didn't really matter.

Once we entered the Cloister Of Trials we were quite shocked.

"Why's it still operational?" Lillie said, meaning the Trials. She was telling the truth – the Trials _were_ functioning.

"I thought the Trials would only work when there was an aeon?" Victoria said, "That's why the other Temple Trials don't work – because there isn't an alive aeon."

We all froze. "Alive ... aeon?" I repeated.

We were all confused, as you would be if you were us. However, our curiosity of what lay behind the Trials pushed us forward and we set to work on what was, by far, the hardest Trial ever.

_::Chamber Of Fayth::_

I entered the Chamber first. That may make me seem brave, but that isn't the truth; the truth is the others forced me to go in first. I walked forward along the tiny path that lead the circular part of the Chamber, all the time looking at me feet. Then I noticed that the room was glowing a silver, whitish colour. It was the glow ... that the statues had given off. I looked up slowly and my mouth dropped open in astonishment. _The statue was still there_! The statues that all the previous Aeons used to reside in, one was there, in front of me. Suddenly a man appeared above the statue. It was the fayth of that Aeon.

"Wow ..." I heard Martha say quietly, and I became aware that the others were behind me.

"Wow indeed," The Fayth said, "You obviously were not expecting to come across myself. I can't blame you, I'm unknown anywhere above this water level."

"H-how are you still here?" Victoria said, "Did-did the ruins or something stop you from, you know, _leaving_?"

The Fayth chuckled slightly, "Of course not – that is not possible. I had to stay."

"You had to?" I said, echoing his words.

"Yes. You see, I am actually the main Fayth. I can understand if you thought Bahamut's was, but instead it is me. It is my duty to stay here and give the information I have to those worthy of it. My name is Farra."

"Um, hi ..." Lillie said, unsure of what to say. "But, what's what your duty? What's this information about?"

"Do you want me to explain? I will tell you know, if you accept to hear what I have to say, you will hold the answer to defeating Lae."

"You know how to defeat him?"

"I do, but if I tell you ... You can not tell any one else, you alone will have to kill him."

Holly asked, barely above a whisper, "Will it be ... hard? Dangerous?"

"Testing," Farra answered, "You will be glad to hear, it involves no fighting. But it will be testing, puzzling, confusing, and I can only give you so much help. Do you accept to hear what I have to say?"

I Looked over my shoulder at the others. Martha and Holly smiled slightly, and Victoria and Lillie give the smallest of nods.

"Yes," I said.

"In that case then," Farra laughed, "You may want to sit down. There will be a lot of questions and answering."

_::The Truth And How To Go About it::_

"Being the Head Fayth I can see everything and I know everything. All the information you have gathered from Maechen, Bahamut and everything else has been correct, but I'm sure you noticed you lacked one of the biggest things. _How to kill Lae_. I have that answer."

He paused, then continued, "Lae, or rather 'Nemesis', wants to get revenge to everything he hates. This you know. However, to do this, he is not planning on causes havoc and destruction the way he did in Djose. He has a different idea in mind. That is why he never attacked Luca or Bevelle when you went there. Anyway, there is a power that lays in the Farplane – no human has ever before come across it. In fact, many pyreflies f the dead have too flown past it without a second glance. Nemesis wants to use this power to cause demolition to Spira. You have to go to this place before Nemesis does, and use the power he was going to use to kill others. But instead, you will use it to kill _him_."

"But ... how are we meant to get there?"

"Follow your heart. Follow your _essence_. Now, you must tell nobody about this place, or your plans. Not even those of which you travel with. Not even Lady Yuna. Understood?"

"Well, yeah," I said, "But how are we meant to get there before Nemesis?"

"Nemesis is already in the Farplane, searching. What you do is get the others to help you. You can tell them you know how to kill him, but no more. Once you enter the Farplane do anything you can to cause Nemesis to come after you. Tell your friends to keep fighting and distracting him until you find out how to kill him."

"You said not even pyreflies have found this place – how are _we_ meant to in little time?"

"When Nemesis looks for the place, he won't be using his essence to find it, because he does not know that he has such a thing. In fact, no body but you and fayth know about the essence. If you follow the essence within you – _your_ essence, you will find it in know time. Good luck."

"Wait!" Lillie called out, "Aren't you going to tell us more about this power?!"

"When we meet again, I will." Then he faded away.

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**A/N: **Review PLEASE!


	15. The Plan Unfolds

**A/N:** Yaye, reviews! I've just realised I've hit the fifty reviews mark! Okay, so it isn't _that_ high, but when you're used to see below fifteen or so (i.e. like me) it kinda is. Sadly, I have no chance of reaching one hundred because this story is actually finished in a few chapters! Oh well ...

Disclaimer: Everything that is entitled to me, belongs to me. Square-Enix and it's products however, are not entitled to me, therefore they do not belong to me.

This chapter is dedicated to **YuniX-2**. I' sorry it's so late, but I've just re-read your review from chapter 6 (!) and it was great advice, so here's my thanks to you!

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**The Plan Unfolds**

"So that's why Farra never showed up on the ocillar finder!" Martha murmured to herself as we hoisted ourselves up onto the South bank of the Moonflow.

"Huh?" Holly groaned, falling flat on her back on the grass near the edge of the path, "Why didn't he show up?"

"Because Shinra searched 'Previous Aeon Dwellings' - or something like that, I can't remember. Anyway, I know for definite he searched 'Previous' and Farra isn't exactly previous, is he?"

"Yeah ..." I said, lying down beside Holly, only half listening as the other four began to talk about everything Farra had said. I gazed up at the sky, occasionally saying 'yeah' or 'that's right' or just nodding, while I really thought about what would happen _after_ we defeated Nemesis/Lae. I mean, sure, Farra could help us kill Nemesis, but could he actually send us home?

"Earth to _A_-me," I heard Lillie yelled in my ear.

I sat up rapidly, my head bashing Lillie's. "Whoops, sorry!" I said, rubbing my own head.

"About not listening or bashing my head?" She groaned.

"Both. So, what's the big deal?"

Victoria motioned to the communicator in Martha's hand, "Guess what? You've done it again. We missed the call from Buddy saying we have to board the airship, seems the communicator lost signal underwater, surprise surprise!"

I groaned, "Brother's gonna take a fit."

"What exactly do we tell them? I mean, they're going go nuts about us leaving guard, and we don't have a good enough reason this time because Farra said we can't tell _anyone_!" Martha said desperately.

"Not exactly," Lillie piped up, "He said we could tell them we found out a way to kill Nemesis! Come on, they're not going to go nuts on us after we say that, are they?"

"You have a point, Miss. Lillie," Holly said, and we all laughed. Then we set off to the Shoopuf port. Apparently, we were told to wait in Guadosalam.

"Let's just hope we don't get attacked by those Hypello's again!" Victoria said to Holly.

_::Guadosalam::_

When we entered Guadosalam the place was absolutely jam packed with people of all kinds. Al Bhed, Guado, Spirans, and (much to Holly and Victoria's disappointment) Hypello.

We made our way to the clearing near Leblanc's mansion. We talked between ourselves for a few moments, when all of a sudden we heard a voice saying to us:

"You wouldn't happen to be travelling with the Gullwings, would you?"

We look up, and in front of us was Leblanc. I nodded in reply.

"I've just had a call from them. They want to speak with me so you have to come into my house and wait for them to arrive. This way, loves!" And she lead us into her house. To be precise, her 'dining room' (the one filled with all the food, in case you're confused).

"Dig in, loves. I'll be back down in a minute," She said, before leaving us to go up to her room.

"What d'you think she's doing?" Lillie asked.

"Probably making her self presentable for her 'Noojie-Woojie'," I replied through a mouth full of pineapple. They all started laughing, causing Martha to choke on her food. Nice.

_::Leblanc's 'Dining Room' Ten Minutes Later::_

"You're friends are in the Dining Room," We heard Leblanc say cheerfully in the hallway of her house. Obviously the Gullwings & Co. had arrived.

When they entered, Rikku and Yuna (and Tidus tagging along behind them but not saying anything) instantly ran over to us, asking if we were okay, while the others just sat down on the chairs around the room. Oh, and Buddy was trying to hold back a struggling Brother yelling at us.

"Lyh'd oui ajan cdyo uh tido?!" (Can't you ever stay on duty?!) Brother screamed at us, "Un tu oui ymfyc ehcecd uh kaddehk mucd?!" (Or do you always insist on getting lost?!)

"Brother, lyms tufh!" (Brother, calm down!) Buddy said, breathing heavily. Gippal and Baralai ran over to help Buddy stopped Brother from charging.

"Famm, oui ghuf fryd? Haqd desa fa ku uh y meddma xiacd, cdyo mucd!" (Well, you know what? Next time we go on a little quest, stay lost!) Brother bawled at us.

"There isn't going to be another 'little quest'," I said normally, staring at Brother.

He stopped struggling, and Buddy said, "What?"

Rikku protested, "We're not giving up now! We've come so-"

"-Far, I know. I'm not saying we're giving up."

"What _are_ you saying?" Buddy asked, sounding confused.

"I'm saying we don't need to go on any more little quests. The next 'quest' we go on, is going to be a big one. _The_ big one. The final one."

"You mean ...?" Baralai muttered, "You mean ... we're going to kill Nemesis next?"

I nodded, and Yuna gasped.

"But we don't know how to! It's obvious you can't you whittle down it's health and then it's dead!"

"We know that!" Martha growled slightly at Yuna (not because she was angry with _her_, just pretty much in a mood at everyone), "And _we_ know, not you, _we_, the five of us, know how to kill him."

Lillie nodded, "Yeah, sorry, but we've been sworn to secrecy and we're not allowed to tell you. No saving the world for the third time, I'm afraid!" She joked.

There was a silence, until Brother decided to break it. He said that he wanted to help, even just in the slightest way (which, seeing as he hated us, was quite a nice gesture). The others agreed.

"We do need their help," I said to the others quietly, "You remember what Farra said."

We told the others they could help and how they could help. We mentioned they had to cause a distraction in the Farplane – and fight Nemesis until we found what we were looking for. Afterwards, everyone filled out of Leblanc's house. Just as I was leaving, Yuna called me back.

"Just to let you know," She said to me, smiling, "I didn't really save the world two times. I had my friends with me – they did just as much I as did, maybe more. Can you remember that please?"

"I know that already. When you were fighting Vegnagun you had the Gullwings – when you fought Yu Yevon you had your guardians."

She smiled at me again and I began to walk out. When I was at the doorway she called, "Wait!" I turned around and looked at her. "How did you know that?" She asked, puzzled.

"Know what?"

"That I fought Yu Yevon, we - that is me and my guardians – we never told anyone we actually fought Yu Yevon. All Spira know is that I somehow defeated Sin."

_Dammit_, I thought to myself, _she's got you there! Why did you have to go and open your big mouth?_

I stood there, speechless for a few moments, wondering what to say. I kept on opening my mouth then closing it. Yuna was about to say something – probably ask me the question again – when Leblanc called from outside.

"Come on, loves!"

Thank the Fayth for people like Leblanc.

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**A/N:** I'm actually quite sad that this story is nearing it's end, but I also can't wait to get rid of this (I'm not going to delete it, if that's what you're thinking, I'm just gonna ignore it!). I was going to carry on Teenage Drama but I'm not going to write it anymore. Email me or ask in a review if you want to carry that story on yourself!


	16. Last Minute Preparations

**A/N: **It's weird, when I first started this story I was really into it for about four chapters. Then I lost interest for _ages _and I had to force myself to write chapter five and then I wrote chapter six before I went away on holiday during July/August. When I got back I wrote chapter seven and got interested again! Anyway, nine chapters after that and I'm still paying attention to my story! Hope you like chapter sixteen!

Disclaimer: Go away.

My computer is being totally dodgy, so I can't access certain areas of the fan fiction site. One of these certain areas happens to be the place I go to see who has reviewed my story – therefore I can't give a dedication! I'm getting this sorted, so when I do find a dedication I replace this with it. Sorry!

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**Last Minute Preparations**

Punch, punch, kick, duck, roll, repeat on the other side ... That was my routine with the punch bag in Luca Gym.

The Gullwings & Co., after a lot of discussion between themselves, finally told us they were going to Luca and the Mi'ihen Highroad to train up for Nemesis. Yuna insisted we came along too.

"You never know, something might go wrong and you need to fight," That was what Yuna said after we groaned with reply. In the end we decide to come along. Some of us were going to the Highroad to train, while others were going to Luca Gym. Martha, Lillie, Victoria and Holly all decided to go to the Highroad with the majority of the rest doing the same, while I went to the Gym with Rikku and Paine. Victoria said she would join us after a bit of fiend training.

"So, why'd you come here instead of with your friends?" Paine asked, massacring the punch bag beside me.

"I got enough training yesterday on the Highroad, thank you," I said between punches. "Why'd you come here?"

"I've had enough training with fiends anywhere," She said through gritted teeth.

"Same here," Giggled Rikku, getting up from falling flat on her backside on the treadmill. "I bet all the boys just went there to show off their skills in fighting, and knowing Gippal probably to show off his body. Yunie probably tagged along wanting to stay with Tidus! And don't take this offensively but, your friends probably went along because you haven't exactly had a lot of training, have you?"

"Got that right," I breathed, collapsing onto the floor. "I'm surprised at you, Rikku, though," When she looked at me suspiciously and Paine peered round the side of the punch bag, I continued, "Don't you want to see Gippal take his top off?"

She blushed furiously, "No! What makes you say that?"

I smirked at her and she blushed some more, realizing what I was talking about (i.e. for those with a bad memory, I was talking about the kiss).

"Something you've not been telling us?" Paine asked, eyebrow raised.

"Shut up!" Rikku said, folding her arms cross her chest. Then she returned to the treadmill. Me and Paine just laughed.

_::Fifteen Minutes Later::_

Victoria came into the Gym room we were in (it was empty besides me, Paine and Rikku) and plonked herself down on the floor why I had fifteen minutes before.

"Tired?" I asked, getting onto the treadmill Rikku had been using and putting it on medium setting.

"Yep. Ten battles in fifteen minutes. No time to rest."

"How are the others?" Rikku asked from a bike machine. "Are they coming?"

"Holly, Lillie and Martha are staying on the Highroad until a bit before we go. Baralai, Gippal and Nooj might come across later, and I don't know about Tidus and Yuna – they left five minutes after we arrived."

"Probably exercising by themselves," Paine said, matter-of-factly.

"Exercising what?" I asked, "Their _tongue's_?"

Victoria recovered from a her laughing fit a few minutes later.

_::An Hour After::_

Baralai and Gippal arrived an hour later.

"Your friends," Baralai said to me and Vic, "Are currently busy trying to find Yuna and Tidus, who have disappeared. Nooj is making his way over now."

Sure enough, five minutes later Nooj arrived. No word on Tidus and Yuna. After that there wasn't much talking. Every so often someone might ask for the time, or change machines. Holly arrived some time later, saying they had found Tidus and Yuna on the Old Road, and that she (Holly) had run ahead because she couldn't be bothered to fight more fiends, while Martha and Lillie were coming over slowly with Tidus and Yuna.

Half an hour afterwards and were all in the Gym. Well, besides Buddy, Brother and Shinra who had been aboard the airship all along. They weren't going to fight Nemesis, just stay as back-up.

"You guys ready to come aboard now? Brother's starting to get on my nerves," Buddy said through Yuna's communicator, so we all returned to the Celsius.

_::Celsius, Deck::_

When we returned it was 9:00pm and Buddy suggested we rested, so everyone went to the Cabin besides Buddy, Brother and Shinra. And me. Instead I went up to the Deck and sat on the Gull statue.

Don't get me wrong – I wasn't bursting with energy or something. I was probably one of the most tired people there, yet ... Well, I'm sure you've felt it before. You know, when you so tired you think you could drop off any second, but when you _try_ to go to sleep, you can't? That was what I was feeling. And somehow, fresh air has always helped me fall asleep.

I don't know how long I was up on the Deck, thinking about everything that had happened while I had been in Spira and back home. I seemed to lose all my senses because I was so deeply engrossed in my thoughts, because all of a sudden the sky around me was pitch black, and I couldn't even make out the land – only the bright lights from the towns and cities below as we passed over them. I peered down into the Bridge of the ship from above, and it was empty. I guessed it was on autopilot.

"It's past midnight, you know," A voice said.

_Past midnight? _I thought to myself,_ Amy, you've been thinking for more than three hours! Maybe you _should_ get some sleep _– _Who said that?!_

I spun around so quickly it looked like I was having a spasm. I couldn't actually see the person's face – it was hidden in the night – but I could make out their height ... and their hair. And their clothes.

I sighed, "Christ, you gave me a shock, Lillie!"

"Sorry," She smiled apologetically. "So, you been here since nine?"

I nodded. "I knew I'd never get to sleep, so I came up here to think ... Mind you, I think I might have fallen asleep up here ... Three hours is kinda long to hold out when you're as tired as me. And I don't feel tired anymore, so maybe I did fall asleep ... Anyway, what about you?"

"Possibly an hours sleep, then I was just lying in bed after that, thinking like you. I would have tried to fall asleep again but someone else in the dark was snoring and it sounded like a bulldozer, so that choice was out the window."

I laughed, and Lillie came to sit besides me, which was slightly in front of the Gull statue.

"How can they all sleep, knowing ... what's going to come?" Lillie asked.

"They've done this before, haven't they? If you think about Yuna's pilgrimage ... every single one of them had to fall asleep knowing what was at the end. We're amateurs. It's not as though anything's going to happen in our world like this ... And if it did, well, we certainly wouldn't be dealing with it."

"Sometimes I think it's better that way," She muttered.

"Yeah," I agreed, "We have wars and everything, but they're in control – well, they are as much as they can be – and Spira, well, it isn't, really. Our world ... is safer, for where we live, at least. And we're taken care of better, when things do get out of hand ..."

"Good old Earth," Lillie joked, but inside we were both feeling down.

After ten minutes or so silence, I asked quietly, "So, what time is it now?"

Lillie consulted her watch, "One in the morning, exactly. We should go back in, I'm getting cold!"

"Where, to the Cabin?" I said, standing up.

"I don't fell like rest, maybe just the Bridge? The Engine Room'll be too noisy."

I nodded in agreement, and we headed towards to the lift. As we came between roughly five metres of the door, Bahamut's Fayth appeared before us.

He stood there for a few moments, letting us recover from our shock, then he said, "Sorry about the sudden appearance but it was necessary I spoke to you now. Because of the Chamber's of Fayth and the entrance in Guadosalam making the Farplane out of limits, you must enter the Farplane through the entrance in the Omega Ruins-"

"We guess that," Lillie said inaudibly.

"Another thing ... you did understand what Farra told you, correct?"

"Yes. We never told the others, just what they could do to help. And we know we have to follow our 'essence'. Even though we do not know how to. Is that what you came to explain? What our essence is?" I said, all in one breath.

The Fayth laughed softly, "Of course not, that is what you have to find out yourself. All I had to do was check upon, make sure you understood."

He was half way through dissolving into the air (well, that's what it looked like, at least) when I stopped him.

"Wait!" I yelled, and he came back into view. "When we met before ... I know it's not a big deal, but when you said we'd helped you in many ways ... you said 'firstly' but you never said-"

"'Secondly'. You are correct. What I was going to say to you was ..." He thought for a few moments. "You were going to destroy Nemesis for us. You see, the Fayth can for-see certain things – Farra can, of course, see more than we can - and we all for-saw that you would find Farra, and follow out his request. But before you ask, we can not tell you whether you will be victorious. Our future-telling abilities stop there, we can not see past you entering the Farplane." And _then_, he dissolved completely.

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**A/N: **Okay, from what I'm guessing, this story should end in ... two chapters? Three at a push, but I don't think so. There will be a sort of Epilogue, but it will actually be in the last chapter, it won't be separate.


	17. To The Farplane And Beyond

**A/N: **Hope this satisfies your needs.

Disclaimer: I do not own Square-Enix (wish I did though ...)

Sorry, I'm no longer doing the dedications! This stories nearing an end and I just want to get it over with, so I can't be bothered to search. Once again, sorry.

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**To The Farplane And Beyond**

At some point between three and four in the morning, Lillie and I fell asleep on the Bridge. We were chatting there for over two hours! We were both woken at the exact same time in the morning, roughly around eleven o' clock.

"Who is that?" I grumbled, hearing voices by the lift. "Why'd they have to wake us up?"

"Well, it _is_ almost lunch time and – Hey, I think it's Paine and someone else." Lillie said, lifting herself off the floor (uncomfortable, but what do you expect?), peeking through the railings and looking along the corridor. She nodded and motioned for me to look. I walked over and we both spied on the pair for more or less five minutes. We were about to leave (well, stop spying) because they were both speaking in whispers and we couldn't hear word, when – suddenly! – Baralai learnt towards Paine and gave her a quick kiss.

"Omigod!" Lillie gasped. "Are they a _couple_? How long do reckon they've been dating?"

"My guess is they weren't dating when we came here – obviously some time since we started our 'adventure'," I said, walking away.

"Yuna and Tidus, Baralai and Paine, Nooj and Leblanc ... Ooohh, we should play match maker on Gippal and Rikku!"

I laughed, shaking my head, "Too late – they're already together."

"Since when?" Lillie asked, looking at me suspiciously.

"Since I spied on them a while ago, when they were both in the downstairs of the Cabin and I was on the upper level. It was after Gippal embarrassed Rikku here on the Bridge, I think. She came storming in here, but they kissed and made up. And I sort-of confronted her about it in the Gym."

Lillie raised an eyebrow, "Sort-of?"

I nodded, "Yeah. I said something about wouldn't Rikku want to go on the Highroad and see Gippal take his top off, I think. Can't remember. Anyway, she got all embarrassed, and the kiss I witnessed was too much of a _snog_ to be ignored!"

Lillie laughed and was about to say something when another voice butted in. "Who snogged who?"

We turned around and saw Baralai standing half way down the steps on the right hand side. There was a definite tinge of urgency in his voice – probably because he suspected we'd seen him and Paine. Which of course we had.

"Well, you and Paine for a start!" Lillie blurted out, making Baralai blush a deep crimson colour. She continued, "But that's not who we were talking about. We were talking about-"

"What we were talking about was none of your business!" I answered, sticking my tongue out at him.

He replied by rolling his eyes, then he asked for the time. When Lillie replied it was lunchtime, he turned around and started back up the stairs. He paused for long enough to say, "Me and Paine are going to wake the others up. Some of them are in quite deep sleeps, I should think some yelling in their ear will wake them up. Want to help?"

We were running past him before he had finished.

_::Cabin::_

Everyone besides Victoria, Lillie, Martha, Holly and I went to the Bridge after we had lunch, almost an hour ago. During the stage of the night, when the airship had been on auto-pilot, we had flown north from Luca, following the path of the Mi'ihen Highroad, Mushroom Rock Road, Djose Highroad (this was roughly the part where me and Lillie went into the Bridge) and then the across the Moonflow. From their the airship took us over Guadosalam, through the Thunder Plains and up to Macalania. We then woke Brother up, he became pilot once more, and started to turn around and fly south-east to the Omega Ruins. At the current time, we were almost half the way their. The only view out of the windows was ocean, and lots of it.

"I wonder how the others are feeling about this?" Victoria wondered aloud, the 'others' meaning everyone on the Bridge. Holly got up and left, taking the lift down to the Bridge. Five minutes later, she came back.

"They're not feeling very well, the others. Nobody was talking – they all seemed tense. But why? They weren't like this when Vegnagun or Sin was around! And we've only seen Nemesis attack once, that was Djose Temple, so why are they so worried?"

"I think," I spoke up, "It might be because Nemesis, or rather Lae, used to be a Fayth. That's got to be bad news."

Martha sighed, "I just want this over and done with."

"Yeah," Lillie agreed. There was a moments silence, then Lillie said again, "We're doing all this, you know, _saving the world_ stuff, but what for? I mean, sure, we'll be saving lives, and that's great, but after that? We don't even know if we'll ever, you know, if we'll ever ..."

"Go home," I finished for her, when she seemed unable to get the words out. She nodded.

"_Alright, everyone, we're here!"_ Buddy's voice came on over an intercom. He'd put on a cheerful enough voice, but it was an obvious fake.

_::Omega Ruins::_

"Can we _please_ rest?" Rikku moaned. We were by the boulder at the end of the path, obviously in the Omega Ruins. Lillie's hand was hovering over the dial, waiting for the signal to carry on.

"No! We have to do this now!" Brother snapped from the airship, with Buddy and Shinra. The three of them were in the airship that was parked (can you park an airship?) back near the beginning of the path. Because they were actually in the Omega Ruins, we still had communication either way. Their job (Brother etc.) was to wait for us to either come out, or to stand by and help when they were needed.

"But 'm so tired!" Rikku said, sitting down on the path, her head resting on her knees.

I think Brother was about to reply, but if he was, he didn't get the chance, mainly because at that moment I said, "Maybe we should stop. Entering the Farplane tired could be – no, _will_ be – fatal. After all, when we enter the Farplane, it all begins. No going back."

The other nodded in agreement, and we stopped until everyone said they were fine. It was at least a fifteen minute wait, but it seemed like hours. Lillie turned the dial, 360 degrees, like before. The floor beneath us opened up, swallowing us. Once again, we were sliding down that spiral slide. As the end of the slide came nearer, I could see the gap at the end that lead us into the Farplane. _This is it_, I thought, _Once we enter the Farplane it begins. No going back._

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**A/N:** Next chapter is the last one! Review please, you too Martha!


	18. The End Of It All, Hopefully Part One

**A/N:** Omigod, major problem! This was supposed to be the last chapter, but I went onto 5 pages of writing (that's the length this is!) and realized I was no where near finished! You're looking at 2 more chapters, probably!

Disclaimer: It's been a while since this story started, and Square-Enix _still_ haven't called up saying they want me to join them! Oh, poo …

No dedication, remember?

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**The End Of It All, Hopefully**

I almost landed on Martha when I came to the end of the slide. Luckily, she managed to roll away. The two of us got up sharpish and waited for the others. They arrived shortly afterwards, standing up and blinking from the bright lights of the farplane. Martha, Lillie, Victoria, Holly and I started to walk away from the cliff the slide had taken us to. Everyone else would wait for Nemesis, while the five of us would find a way off the cliff down to the farplane below.

"We can get down this way" Victoria pointed to a part of the cliff that was on a slight tilt, instead of straight down. The cliff face was covered in groves that could easily be used as hand or foot holes. I agreed with her and started to follow her down the extremely high cliff. I looked at to see a not-so-happy Holly and Martha.

"Just think of it as abseiling" I yelled as I descended out of their view and Lillie came down after me.

I heard Holly mutter"In abseiling, they use ropes" before I was too far away to hear them. Half an hour later and I was only a quarter of the way down the cliff (that should give you some idea of how big it was). Victoria was, well, I didn't know how far down she way – I was too scared to look. Lillie was roughly seven metres above me, with Martha close on her tail, and finally Holly was about ten metres higher than _Martha_.

I lowered my foot down, placing it on a ledge slightly to the left of me. The second the pressure of my foot hit the ledge, it crumbled beneath me, causing me to practically slide a few metres down the cliff face, before I managed to grab and cling onto several groves in the rock.

"Shit" I murmured, daring to look down. The ground seemed miles away, and suddenly everything became dizzy. "Shit, shit, shit" I muttered again, quickly beginning to descend again.

"You okay, Amy" Victoria called from down below me.

I sighed, then shouted back"Yeah. I think."

An hour later, and I was still climbing. I'd not looked down since my accident, and didn't know how far away the ground was from me. Lillie, Martha and Holly were quite a distance further up the rock face then they had been earlier, due to all of us getting tired. I had no idea where Victoria was, and I didn't dare look to find out.

For the hour or so since my accident, the climb had been pretty boring. There was absolutely no suggestions from above that Nemesis had showed up, and we were all beginning to wonder.

Lower foot. Lower hand. Find ledge. Find groove. Place foot. Place hand.

Lower other foot. Lower other hand. Find ledge. Find groove. Place other foot. Place other hand.

And so on, for the past hour.

Lower foot. Lower hand. Find ledge. Find groove. Place foot. Place hand.

Lower other foot. Lower other hand. Find ledge. Find groove. Place other foot. Place other hand.

Lower foot. Lower hand. Find ledge. Find groove. Place foot. Place hand.

Lower other foot. Lower other hand. Find ledge. Find groove. Place other foot. Place other hand.

I lowered my foot, _again_, and suddenly hit solid ground. The impact and surprise made me lose my balance and topple backwards, into the mass of flowers around me. I lay on my back, not bothering to move, just staring up at the sky of the farplane.

"I see your down" Victoria said from somewhere behind me. I sat up slowly, and looked over my shoulder at her.

"Yeah" I managed to say, shakily standing up. "How long you been down for"

She shrugged. "Five minutes" She stared up at the others, making their way down to us. She pointed at them. "Judging by how far away they are, it's gonna take maybe twenty minutes for Lillie to reach us. And then Martha and Holly are at least another ten minutes behind her."

"What, we just … wait" I asked, flopping down beside a boulder and leaning against it.

Victoria nodded, sitting down. "We just wait."

And we settled down for waiting. We waited while Lillie climbed down. We waited as Lillie reached the ground and came over to us. We waited for Martha. We waited for Holly. Turned out, after half an hour of waiting, there weren't quite on the ground.

"We've wasted too much time. For all we know they could be fighting Nemesis now! We've just been _waiting_ here for ages, and we've still got to go and look for this – this _place_ that we don't even know how to get to" Lillie raged. "I mean, we're meant to 'follow our essence', right? Er, does any one know _how_"

I didn't even bother to open my eyes, which had managed to close themselves for a doze a while ago. Seriously. I was dozing. The world was going to be destroyed and me and my friends were going to stop it. And I was dozing.

"I think" Victoria said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully"When he, Farra I mean, said to follow our essence, I think he meant for us to just go where we feel we had to go. You know, act upon instinct."

"Sounds like it" Martha said, jumping up after she had slipped and crashed to the ground from the cliff face (luckily, there was only a metre or so room in between her and the ground).

Holly carefully lowered her self onto the ground, nodded her approval. "So, are we going or what"

"Er, we kinda need to decide _what way we're going_"

"Er, okay, right" I said, looking round for some sort of inspiration. Oddly enough, inspiration was exactly what I got. "That way" I said, pointing slightly to my left.

"Although I'm glad someone has a suggestion, er, why" Lillie asked, staring off into the direction I pointed. Then she noticed exactly what I had. "Oooh! Okay then folks, this way"

The others meekly followed, confused looks covering their faces. Martha spoke up"Is one of you gonna tell us why we're off in this direction"

"Yeah. We're going this way because of _that_" I said, pointing again to my 'inspiration'. Sure enough, the others finally saw it too – roughly one thousand pyreflies, all travelling in that direction, in one enormous crowd. It seemed to make sense to all of us to follow, so we did.

The direction we headed in actually turned out to be a path, with no turn offs, and not a load of open plains (if that's the right word). The path generally followed to edge of the cliff we had previously climbed down, and approximately one hour later we could look back and see the exact part of the cliff were the Gullwings and Co. would, or _should_, have been. All the time the pyreflies floated past overhead. It seemed as if they were pulling back when we could not keep up.

After ages of none of us speaking, except to ask Victoria the time (the only person who happened to ever wear a watch, out of all of us), we were still on the undeviating path. Over time, I had double-backed past Martha and Victoria. I was second last in the line, with Holly behind me.

"OMIGOD" Holly suddenly screamed, causing the rest of us to spin around in revelation. Holly was staring at something in the distance behind us, her eyes opened so wide they looked the size of tennis balls. I'm not sure how long it took for us to notice it, because for me, time seemed to slow.

A ginormous rock, no, _boulder_, was hurtling towards us at least 100 miles per hour. In space of a few fractions of a second, I managed to calculate that the boulder was going to come crashing down on us in a roughly 4 seconds. That may seem impressive, but it was really quite obvious at that moment of time.

I don't remember what happened exactly, my brain wasn't exactly picking up details, but I can vaguely remember all of us running, while the boulder was coming closer. The boulder started to fall downwards, instead of along, and I could see the shadow growing larger on the ground. It was sometime then that I realized the boulder was going to land on Holly, if she didn't run faster. I can also remember Victoria appearing at my shoulder and grabbing Holly's right arm and shoulder, while I grabbed her left. Together we hauled her forward, the exact milli-second the boulder came crashing down.

Time returned to normal. I was lying on the ground, gasping, eyes closed. I heard Martha and Lillie run forward, yelling, and I opened my eyes ever so slightly. From my vantage point I could see Victoria slowly sit up, and Lillie and Martha were running over to Holly, who was lying on the ground, knocked unconscious. I can remember looking and think, _Omigod, the boulder's not even lying a centimetre from her feet_! That's when I realized that the boulder was actually _on _her foot!

I bolted upright, yelling"Holly"

We all crowded round her. "She's not … dead, right" Victoria asked. Lillie knelt down and put her two fingers against Holly's neck.

"No" She replied"Not dead, just unconscious."

"And with a crushed foot" I pointed out solemnly, pointing to the part where Holly's ankle stopped, and the boulder began. "I bet her parents won't be too pleased when we go home if she doesn't have a foot"

I stopped short, realizing what I had said. _**If** we go home_, I thought.

Victoria rubbed her chin thoughtfully"Do you reckon a bit of white magic could heal this? I _am_ in the White Mage dress sphere, after all" She waved her hand at her clothes.

Martha nodded in agreement"Yeah, white magic should fix it up. One problem though" She said, and then pushed hard against the boulder. When it didn't moved an inch she finished"But you're gonna have to move this thing first."

-

**A/N:** Okay people, remember, this is NOT the last chapter! I would never stop here, so like I said, you're looking at 2 more chapters, plus the epilogue! Review!


	19. The End Of It All, Hopefully Part Two

**A/N:** Well, I'm back. I can practically hear you all saying 'Oh no, not again!' but I am back with an another chapter and indeed and whole load of random ramblings.

Disclaimer: Er, don't own game, er, do own this … thingy … story … um, don't sue?

MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

ahem No dedication.

**The End Of It All, Hopefully - Part Two**

"We're not going to budge this boulder any time soon," Lillie said, sitting down and sighing, while Victoria casted some cure spells, trying to heal the pain Holly had realised she was in after she'd woke from her mini-coma – which had lasted ten minutes. See, mini?

We'd realised that the flying boulder was the act of Nemesis up on the cliff, presumably fighting the Gullwings and what not. Martha suggested that he most likely grabbed the nearest thing and hurled it, aiming badly, but Victoria rightly pointed out that Nemesis was a) dead and composed of only pyreflies and b) the same size as an ordinary adult, with not enough physical strength to even lift a boulder.

So, in conclusion (hmmm, my history teacher would be pleased) – we have no idea how Nemesis threw the boulder, if he even did, which is probable (okay, maybe not).

"This is bad," Martha mumbled, looking up at the distant cliff.

"What is?" Asked Lillie, peering up at the cliff, trying to spot what Martha was looking at.

Martha shook her head. "We've been hear to long – I know this is serious but we really need to try and find this-this … _place_!"

"Oh, no, don't worry about _me_ then," Holly said, sarcastically. Evidently Victoria was doing a good job on the healing front.

"Maybe …" Victoria said, creases appearing in her forehead as she thought, "If I stay here with Holly, you three could go find this place and then … well, you know."

'Us three', that is Lillie, Martha and I, looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

"Should we?" I asked.

Martha nodded, "It's our best choice! Er, no offence Holly," She added as an after-thought. We agreed on it and set off, leaving Holly and Victoria by the boulder (or _under_ the boulder, in one case).

_:Ten Minutes Later:_

"Essence my _ass_," Martha said angrily, plonking herself down on the nearest rock. "I _give up_. Seriously! There is no way we're going to find this place. I don't care what that Farra-dude said – how the hell does he expect us to 'follow our essence', when we don't even know WHAT IT IS! And what Hedges said, about acting upon instinct? My instinct is saying _I have no freaking idea where it is_!"

Lillie sighed heavily. "My guess is we've been walking and searching for two hours. Two hours! Yuna ... Rikku ... they probably aren't even fighting anymore. They probably aren't even _alive_ anymore."

"Why did them damn pyreflies have to disperse!" Martha practically screamed.

"I've been thinking ..." I said. Martha and Lillie looked at me expectantly. "Just the word, essence, it kind of gives you the impression it's in the same category as 'soul' and 'spirit', all that stuff, doesn't it?"

"And ...?" Martha raised her eyebrow.

"Well, the New Age type people that are around today ... they believe in stuff like out of body experiences and discovering past lives, don't they?"

"Most," Lillie answered.

"Out of body experiences ... discovering past lives ... speaking to the dead ... it's all a matter of getting in touch with our spirits and souls," I said thoughtfully. "And our 'essence' ... like I said before, the word gives us the impression it is similar to our souls and spirits."

"...So, if people can get in touch with their souls etc., we could get in touch with our essence in a similar way?" Lillie concluded, finally seeing where I was going.

"Exactly."

Martha rubbed her chin, frowning. Eventually she said, "Meditation. That's what they all seem to use. Would it work?"

"No harm in finding out."

_:Five Minutes After That:_

All three of us, sitting in a circle, sunk deeper and deeper into a state of meditation. Our heads were cleared of everything, except for the faintest hint of a quest. To find our essence.

Meditation isn't a state of mind that let's you keep track of the time. How long did we sit there, meditating? Who knows. We never _will_ know, but it's not exactly important. While we were sitting there, we weren't bothered about keeping track of time. We were bothered about finding our essence. And, as luck may have it, we eventually did.

How to explain someone's essence ... It's hard, really. It's not something you can physically see, yet you don't feel anything either. In the term of the five senses, you have no idea what your essence is, or when it's there. But ... you just _know_. It's one of those things.

The easiest way to explain it, in ordinary terms, is by saying that it's a Question And Answer thing. Similar to instinct really, but this actually gave you the _real_ answers, not just what you felt that you should do. And, needless to say, the question on all our minds was _Where is this place we have to find_?

And it showed us. It was if ... a giant TV screen suddenly appeared in our heads. The picture was of us three, sitting there, in our meditating state. Then _whoosh_, it flew off in a certain direction, zigzagging across the Farplane, showing us our trial. Across a field of flowers at least 5ft tall. Over a peaceful stream. Past a group of boulders that looked like a Modern Art statue. Through a forest. Over another river, this time more rapid and vicious than the first. Across another field, this time with only golden grass. Into another forest. Past a clearing with a waterfall. Out the forest and into an open plain. Across the open plain to a ... cliff. More sheer and smooth than the one earlier. No way of getting down it, except for jumping.

At the time, we never found out whether we were expected to jump. Because, suddenly, we were all jerked out of our meditation state. By Martha sneezing.

"What was that for!" Lillie yelled, jumping up.

"Sorry!" Martha said, holding her hands up. "I didn't even realise I needed to sneeze! I'm sorry!"

"We'll just have to find our essence again," Lillie growled.

I shook my head. "No. We're not wasting any more time. If what Lillie said earlier about us travelling without Hedges And Holly took two hours, that means we've been in the Farplane for _six hours_! And we don't know how long we meditated for! We're going to follow the track until we find that cliff. Then we'll decide what to do."

They nodded, and Lillie mumbled an apology to Martha.

"It's okay," Martha replied. "I think we're all worked up."

"I hope you two have a heck of a lot of energy left in you. 'Cos we've got another few hours ahead of us!" I said, getting up off the ground.

As we turned to start walking in the direction our essence had said, I heard Martha mumble something. Something along the lines of, "Over six hours here ... is there any hope the Gullwings and the rest have survived?"

Whether the question was just Martha voicing her thoughts to herself, or it was directed at me and Lillie, I don't know. But me and Lillie looked at each other, before I turned to Martha.

"There's always hope," I said. Lillie nodded. "Even when you don't have anything else, there's always hope."

**A/N:** I was planning on going a lot further with the story in this chapter, but I thought this was a damn good place to stop. And I figured the journey would be a nice chapter by itself. Sorry for being away for so long! R&R please.


	20. Author's Note

First of all, an apology to everyone who has been waiting _ages_ for chapter 20 of this story. I understand that that's basically no one, but I feel the need to say sorry anyway.

Bad news is, there is probably **never** going to be a chapter 20. Why? Because I'm not going to write it. This being because:

a) I have **major** writer's block on this story. And I'm not talking about a little, slightly annoying writer's block - I'm talking about the full-blown, so-bad-I-feel-like-tearing-my-eyes-out writer's block. Seriously.

b) The ending I had planned for this story is absolutely crap, and I have only _just_ realized. It's boring, unexciting, disappointing and complete shit. I refuse to write it.

c) I hate my writing style. A few days ago I re-read the entire story so far and I can't believe I actually posted this. The storyline etc. is fine in my eyes, but the way I've wrote it isn't.

Basically, I'm saying goodbye to this story. I'm not going to delete it from the site - like I said, I'm quite proud of the storyline in general - but you can consider it the end.

However, if - by some amazing stroke of luck - I come up with an ending I like, I **promise** you, I will write it and post it up. But don't wait for me.

If you actually _have_ an idea for this story (which I doubt you will, but whatever), just tell me in a review or email. Then maybe I'll have something to work with.

I would go and ask you to check out my other two stories, but oddly enough - they've pulled to an end as well. Maybe to be deleted, I've not yet decided.

Anyway, I think I've rambled enough. Once again, sorry for being such a crappy author. I hope this won't stop anyone from reading my future stories!

- **Back of Beyond**


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